Bobby G (roboute guilliman) and asscan razors (assault cannon razorbacks). Plus whatever is needed to qualify for the dedicated transports (asscan razors) which will be held up as the unit that is bringing the 'power' to the list.
So, scouts (most likely) or tactical marines. Which somehow proves that marines don't have problems.
The 'other' variants to marine lists are salamanders (min squads with 1 heavy weapon) or raven guard (spend cp to deploy close assault squads in close assault *if* you win first turn).
In other news, ultramarines are blue and GW is continuing as it has for god knows how many years.
-As stated, razorbacks are the best ground vehicle currently thanks to their relatively low cost for the heavy weapons they bring.
-For board control/horde clearing as well as a safer heavy vehicle, Stormraven flyers are very good.
-Typically a successful marine army will use a Chapter Master equivalent character (or a captain with the CP upgrade to keep them cheap pointswise) supplying the to-hit reroll buff to the army. As mentioned, Guilliman adds an extra layer to that so he is a competitive staple. But, if you want to play your Chapter O Choice, honestly... making a naked captain a chapter master is not that bad a move. saves you about 250 points over guiliman.
-Troops wise, scouts and intercessors seem to be the "best of the worst". Marines don't have great troop slots atm in general.
I think Ultramarines are good along with Raven Guard and Salamanders. Black Templars can take five man Crusader squads with a lascannon and plasma gun.
I'm sorry you are deceived by bad data. But All the ultra marine victories came early in 8th eddition when marines were the only codex. Plus even then - they were just spamming 5 storm ravens which have been nerfed in chapter approved. And technically auto lose the game because they have nothing on the ground.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Competitive marines looks something like this.
(Core)
Guilliman
Tiggy
Fire raptor
Then probably just spamming Sicarians and leviathan dreads to go along with Devestators with maybe 2 heavies each.
I love how that list had to kick Ultramarines out from "Space Marines" and into their own category despite the fact that they're the only SM "faction" that doesn't have it's own codex.
the_scotsman wrote: sarcasm aside:
-As stated, razorbacks are the best ground vehicle currently thanks to their relatively low cost for the heavy weapons they bring.
-For board control/horde clearing as well as a safer heavy vehicle, Stormraven flyers are very good.
-Typically a successful marine army will use a Chapter Master equivalent character (or a captain with the CP upgrade to keep them cheap pointswise) supplying the to-hit reroll buff to the army. As mentioned, Guilliman adds an extra layer to that so he is a competitive staple. But, if you want to play your Chapter O Choice, honestly... making a naked captain a chapter master is not that bad a move. saves you about 250 points over guiliman.
-Troops wise, scouts and intercessors seem to be the "best of the worst". Marines don't have great troop slots atm in general.
I think what is said here is "on the nose".
I have played Black Templar for... (yikes) almost 2 decades and with 8th edition I found everything above is the way to go if you cannot bring yourself to go blue.
It is funny how the 5-man squad for my guys cropped up again when the "fluff" is all about huge squads with Scouts mixed in... but they fit in nice with my Razorbacks if mobility is needed.
For the Razorbacks: do not forget I think it has a Storm Bolter option... for even MOAR dakka, cost effective too.
I did get the Guiliman model and keep looking at my Primaris models and feeling blue... I am unsure how long I can resist.
For the Stormraven, it can be mixed for points savings to stick with HB over the MM, the AC is pretty much an auto-include, I sometimes like the MM for opportunity fire of tough models.
As an option, everyone seems to like the Hurricane Bolters for the massed dakka.
I still cannot seem to stick with a "naked" captain: the add-ons are too tempting, but I am trying.
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat is a lot of flyers. I'm going to have to edit my list to potentially deal with that kind of spam, assuming it's still viable. With the new ITC champ missions, I think there will be less of them overall, but we'll see at the LVO.
Rather disingenuous considering there are Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Imperial Fists, Salamanders, White Scars, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, who are basically left holding the bag.
Change Guilliman's buff to "Adeptus Astartes" and then suddenly that would be "Raven Guard" instead of "Ultramarines."
Rather disingenuous considering there are Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Imperial Fists, Salamanders, White Scars, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, who are basically left holding the bag.
Change Guilliman's buff to "Adeptus Astartes" and then suddenly that would be "Raven Guard" instead of "Ultramarines."
BA, I fear, are basically screwed. BA are super-CP heavy, but the razorback, the marine panacea, provides zero CP. Maybe souped with IG they can work, but then, you might as well go all the way and get rid of the elite infantry.
Martel732 wrote: LVO will tell us a lot about marines in Jan 2018, I think.
Until ITC changes its definition of what constitutes a faction to "most specific keyword that describes the entire army," you're going to see a lot of marines lists that are mostly Imperial Guard.
Oh you brought 3 GMNDKs, and ~1100 points of Imperial Guard. Congratulations, best Grey Knights player!
I expect the LVO will tell us that AM is still top of the food chain, and if marines show up in the winners circle it will be with their help. I hope someone comes up with a clever DA configuration, but like martel I've accepted my factions probable fate.
Martel732 wrote: I'll continue to consider those IG lists, and not relevant to a discussion like this one.
Except they won't be called IG lists, because people want to compete for "Best <Garbage Faction>" award. And this forum will claim that everything is fine.
Martel732 wrote: I'll continue to consider those IG lists, and not relevant to a discussion like this one.
Indeed - it's totally irrelevant in a discussion about competitive marines. That's competitive imperium and really...true competitive imperium is basically 100% imperial guard anyways.
Martel732 wrote: I'll continue to consider those IG lists, and not relevant to a discussion like this one.
Indeed - it's totally irrelevant in a discussion about competitive marines. That's competitive imperium and really...true competitive imperium is basically 100% imperial guard anyways.
Only because "best faction player" is an award that people seriously go after. If these lists were labeled "Imperium," they'd immediately cease to exist.
Rather disingenuous considering there are Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Imperial Fists, Salamanders, White Scars, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, who are basically left holding the bag.
Change Guilliman's buff to "Adeptus Astartes" and then suddenly that would be "Raven Guard" instead of "Ultramarines."
This.
For an army that lacks CC ability, the -1 to hit at >12 is just vastly better. Not to mention that RG has the best stratagem. Customization is great and all. But when there exists such a degree of separation, customization becomes an illusion. Part of me thinks that Chapter Tactics actually hurt the SM Codex.
Then probably just spamming Sicarians and leviathan dreads to go along with Devestators with maybe 2 heavies each.
Sicarian whirlwinds seem interesting (but is really outclassed by manticores, like all of our tanks). Leviathan dreads could also creep up. Don't forget assassins, the eversor is probably one of the most point for point effective units around.
Dakka inceptors and hellblasters aren't terrible if you are playing ITC champion missions, stay away from the 5-6x AssBacks because you will give up primary and secondary points like a pinata.
Marines really lack good deep strike/beta strike options which means too much of our army is on the field turn 1 and if you don't go first will be deleted. T7 tanks just don't cut it and land raiders are just too expensive (paying for transport ability they really won't use)
Honestly, there's very little that marines do that some other army doesn't do much better...
Then probably just spamming Sicarians and leviathan dreads to go along with Devestators with maybe 2 heavies each.
Sicarian whirlwinds seem interesting (but is really outclassed by manticores, like all of our tanks). Leviathan dreads could also creep up. Don't forget assassins, the eversor is probably one of the most point for point effective units around.
Dakka inceptors and hellblasters aren't terrible if you are playing ITC champion missions, stay away from the 5-6x AssBacks because you will give up primary and secondary points like a pinata.
Marines really lack good deep strike/beta strike options which means too much of our army is on the field turn 1 and if you don't go first will be deleted. T7 tanks just don't cut it and land raiders are just too expensive (paying for transport ability they really won't use)
Honestly, there's very little that marines do that some other army doesn't do much better...
So true. Assault backs aren't any good now anyways. They took a significant price hike in CA. It's hugely outclassed by a dakka fex.
Martel732 wrote: I'll continue to consider those IG lists, and not relevant to a discussion like this one.
Indeed - it's totally irrelevant in a discussion about competitive marines. That's competitive imperium and really...true competitive imperium is basically 100% imperial guard anyways.
Only because "best faction player" is an award that people seriously go after. If these lists were labeled "Imperium," they'd immediately cease to exist.
I've often wondered if ITC is intentionally doing things to make it hard to determine faction balance. Remember when they didn't reset the leaderboards for 8th ed, so any 8th ed placement data was tainted by the end 7th ed data? Also by having weird rules for determining faction, and ones so open to abuse, it really muddies the water. The ideal way to do it would be your faction is the most specific keyword all of your units share, and you can ignore one unit when determining faction, so you can have an imperial knight, an assassins, a squad of sisters of silence, etc. without it screwing up your faction.
Obstructing attempts to determine balance in order to prevent a negative impact on GW sales would make sense considering the cozy relationship they are in now. It's kind of a crap move on GWs part, "What our customers don't know can't hurt us" kind of stuff, and I say on GWs part because I'm sure someone at FLG told them that the community isn't dumb and will figure it out anyway.
Well, Ultramarines with Bobby G is a decent option as are Ravenguard and Salamanders with their traits. Dark Angels as a shooty force with lots of plasma is also worth considering. The rest? I don't know.
However, as said, AM seems to be at the top of the food chain. Marines with AM and an Eversor would be closer to the top than any stand-alone Marine army.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, Ultramarines with Bobby G is a decent option as are Ravenguard and Salamanders with their traits. Dark Angels as a shooty force with lots of plasma is also worth considering. The rest? I don't know.
However, as said, AM seems to be at the top of the food chain. Marines with AM and an Eversor would be closer to the top than any stand-alone Marine army.
\
An Eversor. BBBBOOOO!!!! You need like 4-5 of them, hell buy them until your wallet explodes, support with manticores and cheap IG chaff, maybe a celestine+seraphim for maximum fun. Sneak a culexus in your vangaurd for psycher shenanigans and you have an amazing "marine" army without any marines!!
Is it just me or are these things broken and due for a nerf? Please help me before I go buy a bunch, spend a month (or two, I'm slow and bad) painting them only to have them nerfed to the ground in March (next major update right?)?
wuestenfux wrote: Well, Ultramarines with Bobby G is a decent option as are Ravenguard and Salamanders with their traits. Dark Angels as a shooty force with lots of plasma is also worth considering. The rest? I don't know.
However, as said, AM seems to be at the top of the food chain. Marines with AM and an Eversor would be closer to the top than any stand-alone Marine army.
\
An Eversor. BBBBOOOO!!!! You need like 4-5 of them, hell buy them until your wallet explodes, support with manticores and cheap IG chaff, maybe a celestine+seraphim for maximum fun. Sneak a culexus in your vangaurd for psycher shenanigans and you have an amazing "marine" army without any marines!!
Is it just me or are these things broken and due for a nerf? Please help me before I go buy a bunch, spend a month (or two, I'm slow and bad) painting them only to have them nerfed to the ground in March (next major update right?)?
This is literally the exact thought process when building a list that everyone on the Imperium side goes through, lol.
Start with marines.
Wait, I need some IG for chaff + artillery.
Wait, I need some good deep strike.
Wait, I need some good assault.
Well, now I don't have enough marines to justify this reroll character.
Well, without that character I could just add more IG & assassins.
And thus, the best marine list is born, with 0 marines.
This is literally the exact thought process when building a list that everyone on the Imperium side goes through, lol.
Start with marines.
Wait, I need some IG for chaff + artillery.
Wait, I need some good deep strike.
Wait, I need some good assault.
Well, now I don't have enough marines to justify this reroll character.
Well, without that character I could just add more IG & assassins.
And thus, the best marine list is born, with 0 marines.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, Ultramarines with Bobby G is a decent option as are Ravenguard and Salamanders with their traits. Dark Angels as a shooty force with lots of plasma is also worth considering. The rest? I don't know.
However, as said, AM seems to be at the top of the food chain. Marines with AM and an Eversor would be closer to the top than any stand-alone Marine army.
\
An Eversor. BBBBOOOO!!!! You need like 4-5 of them, hell buy them until your wallet explodes, support with manticores and cheap IG chaff, maybe a celestine+seraphim for maximum fun. Sneak a culexus in your vangaurd for psycher shenanigans and you have an amazing "marine" army without any marines!!
Is it just me or are these things broken and due for a nerf? Please help me before I go buy a bunch, spend a month (or two, I'm slow and bad) painting them only to have them nerfed to the ground in March (next major update right?)?
This is literally the exact thought process when building a list that everyone on the Imperium side goes through, lol.
Start with marines.
Wait, I need some IG for chaff + artillery.
Wait, I need some good deep strike.
Wait, I need some good assault.
Well, now I don't have enough marines to justify this reroll character.
Well, without that character I could just add more IG & assassins.
And thus, the best marine list is born, with 0 marines.
This is a sad day for Marines, for Marine players, and for GW who has declared Marines as its show-case army.
Thus Marines are dead at the competitive level and hence this thread is also dead. A sad day ...
People usually exaggerate on dakkadakka. Ass can razorbacks are still very solid and even with the new points cost they're still undercosted.
In SW lists 2-3 of them help a lot, even at 116 points each. In fact they do a lot of damage for their cost, even without Guilliman's re-rolls. Not a mandatory choice, but certainly solid. 116 points for 12 S6 and 2/4 S4 shots at BS3+, T7, 3+ save, 10W and also a transport capacity are a steal.
The results in tournaments don't define the quality of a unit or an army. Tournaments' games aren't even proper 40k games with all their limitations, especially the 3 turns game thing.
Sure Guilliman isn't the bully he used to be in the previous months but SM lists are still solid in any meta, with the exception of those ones that are just full of WAAC players that only try their lists for tournaments. Which means a few armies and a few lists, certainly not a standard meta.
SM are superior to all index armies, which are still quite a lot, and also better than some other codex armies like Ad Mech or Grey Knights. Tyranids, eldar and chaos are certainly better but not impossible to defeat with SM. Chaos non soups lists are also worse than SMIMHO, especially now that malefic lords have been nerfed. Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
People usually exaggerate on dakkadakka. Ass can razorbacks are still very solid and even with the new points cost they're still undercosted.
Yes and yes.
Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
As a BA player, I'm not very confident. Their trait ''Red Thurst'' is useful in cc, but its hard to reach it against non-chaff units these days.
DA seems to have the better trait. It can help to keep the enemy at arm's length. For me, the best trait besides those of RG and Salamanders.
I think what BA struggle from is - If you're not using Sanguinary Guard or Death company you're not really playing Blood Angels and might as well back to Gulliman.
Because of that most lists I've seen for BA have been super elite with a unit of 10 Sang Guard & 10 DC with supporting characters.
Elite armies just don't work in this edition but BA are shoehorned into it if want to really play a BA army.
Moreover, the BA codex lacks customization.
There are a few units and models that are BA by heart, like some special characters, Sanginunary Priests, SG, DA, and Baal Predators.
The rest are vanilla models and units that can be run in any sort of SM chapter.
This lack of tailoring is a consequence of GW's copy and paste mentality concerning the SM codices.
Blackie wrote: People usually exaggerate on dakkadakka. Ass can razorbacks are still very solid and even with the new points cost they're still undercosted.
In SW lists 2-3 of them help a lot, even at 116 points each. In fact they do a lot of damage for their cost, even without Guilliman's re-rolls. Not a mandatory choice, but certainly solid. 116 points for 12 S6 and 2/4 S4 shots at BS3+, T7, 3+ save, 10W and also a transport capacity are a steal.
The results in tournaments don't define the quality of a unit or an army. Tournaments' games aren't even proper 40k games with all their limitations, especially the 3 turns game thing.
Sure Guilliman isn't the bully he used to be in the previous months but SM lists are still solid in any meta, with the exception of those ones that are just full of WAAC players that only try their lists for tournaments. Which means a few armies and a few lists, certainly not a standard meta.
SM are superior to all index armies, which are still quite a lot, and also better than some other codex armies like Ad Mech or Grey Knights. Tyranids, eldar and chaos are certainly better but not impossible to defeat with SM. Chaos non soups lists are also worse than SMIMHO, especially now that malefic lords have been nerfed. Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
Razorbacks are not undercosted, because they provide zero CP. Sisters are better than marines. Maybe Drukhari.
Blackie wrote: People usually exaggerate on dakkadakka. Ass can razorbacks are still very solid and even with the new points cost they're still undercosted.
In SW lists 2-3 of them help a lot, even at 116 points each. In fact they do a lot of damage for their cost, even without Guilliman's re-rolls. Not a mandatory choice, but certainly solid. 116 points for 12 S6 and 2/4 S4 shots at BS3+, T7, 3+ save, 10W and also a transport capacity are a steal.
The results in tournaments don't define the quality of a unit or an army. Tournaments' games aren't even proper 40k games with all their limitations, especially the 3 turns game thing.
Sure Guilliman isn't the bully he used to be in the previous months but SM lists are still solid in any meta, with the exception of those ones that are just full of WAAC players that only try their lists for tournaments. Which means a few armies and a few lists, certainly not a standard meta.
SM are superior to all index armies, which are still quite a lot, and also better than some other codex armies like Ad Mech or Grey Knights. Tyranids, eldar and chaos are certainly better but not impossible to defeat with SM. Chaos non soups lists are also worse than SMIMHO, especially now that malefic lords have been nerfed. Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
I have to disagree with this.
Compared to a Dakka Fex with enhanced senses and -1 to hit carapace - Razors with 2x AC cost the same.
Dakka fex has +12 shots at 0 AP. Hit's on 3/4 in CC - with 1 powerful attack and 4 str 7's. Is tougher because it's -1 to hit. Can move and shoot with no penalty. It provides command points and can be deployed in groups of 3 to reduce drop number. And it gets an army trait. The only advantage Razor has is transport capacity and lets face it - marines have nothing worth transporting - additionally it hurts it's own fire power to get those crappy units into the battle.
Space marines aren't solid in any meta really. They are bottom tier in every meta. They struggle against index armies. Games are over in 3 turns anyways. The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
Blackie wrote: People usually exaggerate on dakkadakka. Ass can razorbacks are still very solid and even with the new points cost they're still undercosted.
In SW lists 2-3 of them help a lot, even at 116 points each. In fact they do a lot of damage for their cost, even without Guilliman's re-rolls. Not a mandatory choice, but certainly solid. 116 points for 12 S6 and 2/4 S4 shots at BS3+, T7, 3+ save, 10W and also a transport capacity are a steal.
The results in tournaments don't define the quality of a unit or an army. Tournaments' games aren't even proper 40k games with all their limitations, especially the 3 turns game thing.
Sure Guilliman isn't the bully he used to be in the previous months but SM lists are still solid in any meta, with the exception of those ones that are just full of WAAC players that only try their lists for tournaments. Which means a few armies and a few lists, certainly not a standard meta.
SM are superior to all index armies, which are still quite a lot, and also better than some other codex armies like Ad Mech or Grey Knights. Tyranids, eldar and chaos are certainly better but not impossible to defeat with SM. Chaos non soups lists are also worse than SMIMHO, especially now that malefic lords have been nerfed. Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
I have to disagree with this.
Compared to a Dakka Fex with enhanced senses and -1 to hit carapace - Razors with 2x AC cost the same.
Dakka fex has +12 shots at 0 AP. Hit's on 3/4 in CC - with 1 powerful attack and 4 str 7's. Is tougher because it's -1 to hit. Can move and shoot with no penalty. It provides command points and can be deployed in groups of 3 to reduce drop number. And it gets an army trait. The only advantage Razor has is transport capacity and lets face it - marines have nothing worth transporting - additionally it hurts it's own fire power to get those crappy units into the battle.
Space marines aren't solid in any meta really. They are bottom tier in every meta. They struggle against index armies. Games are over in 3 turns anyways. The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
You have to burn CPs to get some milage out of Marines.
But how may CPs will have for an army at the 1500 to 2000 pt level?
Not too much and I spend my CPs often for rerolls. - here Salamanders come in with their trait.
This sounds silly to me. SM are one of the most customization-friendly armies - by far - with the most weapons and models selection. Saying BA lacks customization is like saying, "Target doesn't have much selection compared to Walmart," when they have vastly more compared to most stores. BA is a sub-faction of SM, it makes sense they'd not have an entirely unique/customizable army.
Then probably just spamming Sicarians and leviathan dreads to go along with Devestators with maybe 2 heavies each.
Sicarian whirlwinds seem interesting (but is really outclassed by manticores, like all of our tanks). Leviathan dreads could also creep up. Don't forget assassins, the eversor is probably one of the most point for point effective units around.
Dakka inceptors and hellblasters aren't terrible if you are playing ITC champion missions, stay away from the 5-6x AssBacks because you will give up primary and secondary points like a pinata.
Marines really lack good deep strike/beta strike options which means too much of our army is on the field turn 1 and if you don't go first will be deleted. T7 tanks just don't cut it and land raiders are just too expensive (paying for transport ability they really won't use)
Honestly, there's very little that marines do that some other army doesn't do much better...
So true. Assault backs aren't any good now anyways. They took a significant price hike in CA. It's hugely outclassed by a dakka fex.
Out of curiosity, were assault cannon R.backs performing as well in other marine lists as they were in Ultramarine/Guilliman lists? It feels like GW just gave a points hike to a weapon without first identifying the exact symptoms of why Razorbacks were performing so well (Guilliman aura bubble).
Out of curiosity, were assault cannon R.backs performing as well in other marine lists as they were in Ultramarine/Guilliman lists? It feels like GW just gave a points hike to a weapon without first identifying the exact symptoms of why Razorbacks were performing so well (Guilliman aura bubble).
Yeah, they were probably the most efficient option for any SM chapter regardless of composition. You just got such a massive discount for the Twin version of the Assault Cannon on top of the Razorback being a very cheap platform to put it on. Guilliman just made it even better and continues to make Ultramarine versions of any Space Marine list better than any alternative.
The results in tournaments don't define the quality of a unit or an army. Tournaments' games aren't even proper 40k games with all their limitations, especially the 3 turns game thing.
Sure Guilliman isn't the bully he used to be in the previous months but SM lists are still solid in any meta, with the exception of those ones that are just full of WAAC players that only try their lists for tournaments. Which means a few armies and a few lists, certainly not a standard meta.
SM are superior to all index armies, which are still quite a lot, and also better than some other codex armies like Ad Mech or Grey Knights. Tyranids, eldar and chaos are certainly better but not impossible to defeat with SM. Chaos non soups lists are also worse than SMIMHO, especially now that malefic lords have been nerfed. Not sure about DA and BA, I haven't faced them recently and I also haven't seen their codex yet.
I don't understand this myopic view that the only meta that matters is my local meta and if something is doing well there then it is not broken. Or if you aren't playing the game the way I play the game then it's your fault and how dare you try to get the game to work for you.
This is the type of attitude that kills me on this board. WAAC does not mean players that run optimized lists. Hell there was a whole thread on this not too long ago. People throw that term around to disparage people who actually try to bring the best lists they can. Playing to win IMHO is different than winning at all costs. WAAC = fudging dice rolls, cheating, loose interpretation of the rules, not being a good sport (no you moved there no moving again), sticking to the rules only when it benefits you. Actions taken in game to get an advantage not playing fair. Playing to win involves list building, tactical movement and target priority and doing your best within the framework of the rules and community you are playing in to win. Not at all cost but with your best effort. If you forgot a psychic power most people in my meta will let you go back, but please believe you will be doing it against 30 dark reapers or oblits and cultists or some other optimized list. Not WAAC but definitely trying to win.
Of course Marines aren't broken if neither side is playing to win, but once other armies start playing the game to win our army falls apart. Hell I can not shoot with any heavy weapons ever, how does that impact how competitive heavy weapons are in the game as a whole?
So no Marines are not solid in any meta. They are solid in non-competitive metas and struggle in any competitive metas
SM are not superior to all index armies. As said before Sisters are in a much better competitive space and if you look at any tournament data Orks perform better as well.
No razorbacks are not undercosted. LRs with gattling cannons pumping out 40 shots for 142 points is undercosted (for 28 additional points I'll take 4.356 MEQ wounds vs 2.614 MEQ wounds, +1 toughness and tactics to boot...) RBs die way too easy compared to other army's armor (LRs, wave serpants, hell even Kastelans).
Ever since the codexes have started coming out they have really been punished by all of the -1 to hits out there and enemy heavy weapons getting cheaper they pop like popcorn.
There are plenty of units that are undercosted, Razorbacks just got their points bumped because GW wants to sell more inceptors/primaris and their role was filled better by razorbacks. Now with the point increase on RBs and decrease on ceptors 18 s5 -1ap assault bolter shots is > 12 s6 -1 heavy bolter shots for about the same price. They have similar level of survival (ceptors with chapter tactics, -1 to hit or 6++ FnP for the most part take about the same number of shots to remove as a razorback).
So to summarize:
WAAC does not equal playing to win
SM are not solid in any meta (but are not the worst)
SM are not superior to any codex army
RBs are not undercosted compared to entries from other codexs (paying for transport ability that is rarely used)
SM are not the worst army, low-mid tier (7-10/15?) but the competitive advantage of the top tier codexs vs the rest of the pack makes it more of a binary top or not issue.
This sounds silly to me. SM are one of the most customization-friendly armies - by far - with the most weapons and models selection. Saying BA lacks customization is like saying, "Target doesn't have much selection compared to Walmart," when they have vastly more compared to most stores. BA is a sub-faction of SM, it makes sense they'd not have an entirely unique/customizable army.
This is not what I meant. I’m fully referring to BA. That SM armies are customizable is clear.
But I want more unique combinations for BA.
This sounds silly to me. SM are one of the most customization-friendly armies - by far - with the most weapons and models selection. Saying BA lacks customization is like saying, "Target doesn't have much selection compared to Walmart," when they have vastly more compared to most stores. BA is a sub-faction of SM, it makes sense they'd not have an entirely unique/customizable army.
This is not what I meant. I’m fully referring to BA. That SM armies are customizable is clear.
But I want more unique combinations for BA.
No, that's exactly what I was addressing. Sorry if it wasn't clear. Even with the slight limitations that BA have for being a sub-faction of the greater SM whole (and additional gear they get to compensate for it), they still have a vast amount of customization capability compared to nearly every other army. Complaining about the lack of customization just comes across poorly, like a rich person complaining about having to pay more in taxes.
Then probably just spamming Sicarians and leviathan dreads to go along with Devestators with maybe 2 heavies each.
Sicarian whirlwinds seem interesting (but is really outclassed by manticores, like all of our tanks). Leviathan dreads could also creep up. Don't forget assassins, the eversor is probably one of the most point for point effective units around.
Dakka inceptors and hellblasters aren't terrible if you are playing ITC champion missions, stay away from the 5-6x AssBacks because you will give up primary and secondary points like a pinata.
Marines really lack good deep strike/beta strike options which means too much of our army is on the field turn 1 and if you don't go first will be deleted. T7 tanks just don't cut it and land raiders are just too expensive (paying for transport ability they really won't use)
Honestly, there's very little that marines do that some other army doesn't do much better...
So true. Assault backs aren't any good now anyways. They took a significant price hike in CA. It's hugely outclassed by a dakka fex.
Out of curiosity, were assault cannon R.backs performing as well in other marine lists as they were in Ultramarine/Guilliman lists? It feels like GW just gave a points hike to a weapon without first identifying the exact symptoms of why Razorbacks were performing so well (Guilliman aura bubble).
Well - they certainly don't do their balancing based on tournament performance. Or maybe they only value tournament results that take place at warhammer world - an army with Gman and 6 razor won the first heat of war-hammer worlds first big tourny. The twin linked version of the assault cannon was a little under-priced compared to the single so the nerf makes sense I guess. It puts the razor more in line with the rest of the trash in the marine codex.
But they aren't always in cover. And units like dark reapers shoot right through the cover. Marines are just too expensive for the way 8th ed plays atm.
Xenomancers wrote: The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?
Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).
Genestealers are a glass cannon. T4, 5+, 1W, but pack a mean punch if they ever make it to combat.
Marines don't have a cannon. If your average power armored marine fired a gun with the profile: Strength 5, AP-1, 1 damage, Rapid fire 2 24", they'd be deserving of the "cannon" status.
While they aren't made of glass, 3++ is not NEARLY as good as it used to be.
Xenomancers wrote: The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?
Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).
By that logic, Dark Eldar Venoms are a bastion of invulnerability while Land Raiders are glass cannons
Durability has taken a kick in the nuts across the board this edition, but it has all scaled the same. While Marines are less durable this edition than last, they are still more durable than everyone else who they were more durable than last edition. They can never qualify as glass until stat lines shift. They might certainly be less point efficient now since everything dies so much more quickly, but that doesn't make them a glass canon. It just makes them mid-tier-meh.
Xenomancers wrote: The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?
Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).
By that logic, Dark Eldar Venoms are a bastion of invulnerability while Land Raiders are glass cannons
Considering the have the same to wound roll from a las cannon and will get the same saving throw as well. The venom is actually harder to wound than a LR with a las cannon because it has natural -1 to hit.
3 venoms 240 points and has 18 wounds
1 land raidercrusader (the cheapest one) is 308 points and has 16 wounds.
Without even doing the math I can already tell you that venoms are more resilant to las cannons that land raiders are per point. Lets see how bad it actually is.
LR vs BS3+ LC (2/3)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5)= .1.04 average damage to a landraider = 15.38 las cannons to kill 1 lan raider (308 cost)
Venom vs BS3+ LC (1/2)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5) = .78 average damage to a Venom = 23.08 las cannons to kill 3 venoms (240 cost)
and Venoms get wounds at a 78% discount compared to a land raider too.
So...it's pretty clear that the land raider is not tough at all in practice.
Xenomancers wrote: The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?
Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).
By that logic, Dark Eldar Venoms are a bastion of invulnerability while Land Raiders are glass cannons
Considering the have the same to wound roll from a las cannon and will get the same saving throw as well. The venom is actually harder to wound than a LR with a las cannon because it has natural -1 to hit.
3 venoms 240 points and has 18 wounds
1 land raidercrusader (the cheapest one) is 308 points and has 16 wounds.
Without even doing the math I can already tell you that venoms are more resilant to las cannons that land raiders are per point. Lets see how bad it actually is.
LR vs BS3+ LC (2/3)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5)= .1.04 average damage to a landraider = 15.38 las cannons to kill 1 lan raider (308 cost)
Venom vs BS3+ LC (1/2)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5) = .78 average damage to a Venom = 23.08 las cannons to kill 3 venoms (240 cost)
and Venoms get wounds at a 78% discount compared to a land raider too.
So...it's pretty clear that the land raider is not tough at all in practice.
That's a great argument against 1 gun that ignore toughness and armor saves. Now do the same math for Bolters.
We can't even discuss the original question because of all the negative posts about SM in general from some of the posters in this thread. If they could just not post anything here for say 24 hours I bet we could show some of the really great things about SM and what they can do.
Primark G wrote: We can't even discuss the original question because of all the negative posts about SM in general from some of the posters in this thread. If they could just not post anything here for say 24 hours I bet we could show some of the really great things about SM and what they can do.
The negative posts are a result of the poor internal balance of the Space Marine book. The things that are getting complained about (generic bodies, Land Raiders) are also the bad things you don't use in a competitive Space Marine list.
What you do use in a competitive Space Marine list is all the reroll auras you can get your hands on and the bits of the arsenal that are competitively priced (Stormravens, Razorbacks, Aggressors, Hellblasters...). There's plenty of stuff the Space Marines have access to that's good. There's also plenty of stuff they have access to that's terrible, and unfortunately what's good is mostly composed of newer things or things that were terrible most of the last few editions, so you have a lot of bitter Space Marine players come out to grumble about the rules for their collections getting gutted.
Space Marines have scouts and Intercessors which are both excellent troop choices and cheap. Space Marines are generalists so you can't make a case that there is poor internal balance - they can do anything, not that you necessarily should. Alot of the new units are very good in fact such as already mentioned Intercessors, you mentioned Hellblasters... Chapter Approved in general was very good for Primaris units.
Primark G wrote: SM are great but they will never get a fair shake here due to the sentiment prevailing in these parts. Thus it is a waste of time to argue the point.
Robby G ultramarines are really the only competitive list for pure marines, and even that has been kind of limp as of late. It's not like we pulled this opinions out of thin air, If you check the blood of kittens rankings, space marines are decidedly mediocre. Go check the ultramarines winning lists, and you'll see they bring as few marines as possible, especially the most recent ones. The current ITC faction rules muddy the waters, but if you look at the lists it's pretty clear space marines aren't doing well.
The issue is that marines haven't been doing well for a long time, even in 7th ed you had to give them hundreds of points worth of free units and a silver bullet in the form of grav to make them competitive. While there have been many changes with 8th ed, the fundamental challenges of marines haven't changed. Being a master of none puts them on their back foot whenever they fight specialist, which is made worse by the fact they are bad at controlling the flow of battle. Another issue is the game is also so saturated with power armor that everyone brings weapons to deal with power armor just as a matter of course. An issue that GW is only making worse. Primaris marines try to address this by making them master of some, but GW has crippled them with the restrictions on load out.
Xenomancers wrote: The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.
I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?
Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).
By that logic, Dark Eldar Venoms are a bastion of invulnerability while Land Raiders are glass cannons
Considering the have the same to wound roll from a las cannon and will get the same saving throw as well. The venom is actually harder to wound than a LR with a las cannon because it has natural -1 to hit.
3 venoms 240 points and has 18 wounds 1 land raidercrusader (the cheapest one) is 308 points and has 16 wounds.
Without even doing the math I can already tell you that venoms are more resilant to las cannons that land raiders are per point. Lets see how bad it actually is.
LR vs BS3+ LC (2/3)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5)= .1.04 average damage to a landraider = 15.38 las cannons to kill 1 lan raider (308 cost)
Venom vs BS3+ LC (1/2)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5) = .78 average damage to a Venom = 23.08 las cannons to kill 3 venoms (240 cost)
and Venoms get wounds at a 78% discount compared to a land raider too.
So...it's pretty clear that the land raider is not tough at all in practice.
That's a great argument against 1 gun that ignore toughness and armor saves. Now do the same math for Bolters.
Lol, right? Or any middle-range, commonly-used weapon, like an assault cannon. "If I use the gun that's optimized to kill X unit against both X and Y, Y is clearly the superior unit! Unfair!" I really think he/she is missing the point that invulnerable saves are far from the end-all be-all in determining the resiliency of a unit (notice how quick he was to change his argument from that to "oh, yeah, the -1 to hit *also*").
Primark G wrote: SM are great but they will never get a fair shake here due to the sentiment prevailing in these parts. Thus it is a waste of time to argue the point.
Robby G ultramarines are really the only competitive list for pure marines, and even that has been kind of limp as of late. It's not like we pulled this opinions out of thin air, If you check the blood of kittens rankings, space marines are decidedly mediocre. Go check the ultramarines winning lists, and you'll see they bring as few marines as possible, especially the most recent ones. The current ITC faction rules muddy the waters, but if you look at the lists it's pretty clear space marines aren't doing well.
The issue is that marines haven't been doing well for a long time, even in 7th ed you had to give them hundreds of points worth of free units and a silver bullet in the form of grav to make them competitive. While there have been many changes with 8th ed, the fundamental challenges of marines haven't changed. Being a master of none puts them on their back foot whenever they fight specialist, which is made worse by the fact they are bad at controlling the flow of battle. Another issue is the game is also so saturated with power armor that everyone brings weapons to deal with power armor just as a matter of course. An issue that GW is only making worse. Primaris marines try to address this by making them master of some, but GW has crippled them with the restrictions on load out.
Here is the thing - top players have always eschewed using Space Marine armies plus they look for spamming and cheap ways to win, they are not always the best players by any means. I am doing very well with my Ultramarines army.
Define very well. Any recent GT victories? How about major recent events? After all this is a thread about COMPETITIVE marine players...
Oh, you are doing good in your local beer and pretzels meta and haven't faced a 30 dark reaper list, or 20 something shining spears, nope no malific lord spam or how about that hot assassin army when it came out. 3x fire raptors, tiggy and gman, morty+magnus, oblits cultists and berserkers, dakka fexes and GS, how's it going against IG lists, plasma scion spam, you know COMPETITIVE LISTS.
Your local experiences do not set the meta for everyone. If you are having a hard time understanding that marines are having trouble in the current meta get outside of your bubble and look at some of the math people present or the recent tournament data. There was a recent podcast breakdown of tournament results that did a good job of breaking down the top factions.
Unless you are the best space marine player in the history of 40k and have some super-secret list that is better than anyone else out there playing your results are an outlier and have little to no bearing on the situation that COMPETITIVE marine players are finding themselves in.
Primark G wrote: Space Marines have scouts and Intercessors which are both excellent troop choices and cheap. Space Marines are generalists so you can't make a case that there is poor internal balance - they can do anything, not that you necessarily should. Alot of the new units are very good in fact such as already mentioned Intercessors, you mentioned Hellblasters... Chapter Approved in general was very good for Primaris units.
"Poor internal balance" doesn't mean that the Space Marines are worse at something than a more specialized army. "Poor internal balance" means that the Space Marine book contains units that are fine and workable (like the aforementioned Intercessors and Scouts) alongside units that are ridiculous and unplayable (Assault Marines, for instance).
Given the vast number of units in the Space Marine Codex and the poor internal balance between those units it is entirely too easy to build a whole army around units that look cool and are actually somewhere from mediocre to terrible (Tactical Marines, Assault Marines, and Land Raiders are the ones I've got personal experience with finding to be terrible) and conclude that the Codex as a whole is terrible. Which is the source of a lot of the griping.
But you do have to spam a few select units. The fact that there are many options (ranging from mediocre to terrible) as alternatives isn't very helpful. This is a criticism i have with all codexes, not just marines - there shouldn't be 1 or 2 viable builds. There should be a book worth of viable units, allowing for many viable builds. But sadly there is not, and never has been. :(
Primark G wrote: Internal balance is only a real problem if you have to spam a few select units. This is not the case for SM.
Internal balance is a problem any time you open your Codex, find a unit entry, and think to yourself "This is terrible, why would I ever use it?"
The point of "balance" is to allow someone with no knowledge or experience of the game to walk up to a wall in a store somewhere, see something that looks cool, buy it, put it on the table, and have fun. If you buy a unit, put it on the table, and find out that it's never even remotely useful and any time and money you may have spent on it is pointless, then "balance" has failed to serve its purpose.
Primark G wrote: There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -
Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor
Hellblasters - arguably the best unit in the codex but what do I do with them? Their transport is 300 points - they can't deep strike in any way except for RG infiltrate but then you can't use Guilliman which means they rest of your list sucks now.
Intercessors - not terrible but not great ether - probably need to drop to 16 points to be viable.
Scouts - Scouts are bad - straight up.
Redemptor - Pretty model but terribly bad. Easy to kill because no ino - -1 to hit when it moves - gets shredded by anti tank without doing much damage.
Inceptors - Much better with CA - still not great. Vs the weapons that hurt them the die just as fast as 18 points intersessors - they suck.
HQ including special characters - Ultra marine Chacters are good. The rest of the characters don't matter because you have to play ultra marines.
Assault Centurians - Deployment options - 300 point LR - 80 point drop pod that does nothing but shoot a storm bolter - foot slog expensive AF units up the middle with no invo save - AKA not a viable unit.
Assault cannon RZBs - Great all around weapon platform - crucial weakness - short range/penalty for moving/ gets assaulted because you have no screens making it worthless.
Predators - Our best tank- great firepower - Very mediocre everything else T7/no invo/expensive per wound/-1 to hit if it moves/worthless if it gets assaulted. (compare to a crimson hunter - see why it sucks)
Repulsor - Hilariously high number of light guns - hilariously easy to kill for a 300 point model. Not viable.
Primark G wrote: There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -
Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor
I would take away Redemptor Dread and Assault Centurions (only Stromraven and LR could bring them into range in 8th, Droppod Ass Centurion is long kaput).
I am 50/50 about the Repulsor, it is too expensive and not hard to take down if not buffed by Tigirius, but it has the dakka and is the only way to keep your Hellblaster / Aggressors alive before they get into their optimum fire range. Had it been for 260pts or 270pts mark instead of 310pts mark, I would have no comment about putting it in this list.
Primark G wrote: There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -
Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor
Hellblasters - arguably the best unit in the codex but what do I do with them? Their transport is 300 points - they can't deep strike in any way except for RG infiltrate but then you can't use Guilliman which means they rest of your list sucks now.
Intercessors - not terrible but not great ether - probably need to drop to 16 points to be viable.
Scouts - Scouts are bad - straight up.
Redemptor - Pretty model but terribly bad. Easy to kill because no ino - -1 to hit when it moves - gets shredded by anti tank without doing much damage.
Inceptors - Much better with CA - still not great. Vs the weapons that hurt them the die just as fast as 18 points intersessors - they suck.
HQ including special characters - Ultra marine Chacters are good. The rest of the characters don't matter because you have to play ultra marines.
Assault Centurians - Deployment options - 300 point LR - 80 point drop pod that does nothing but shoot a storm bolter - foot slog expensive AF units up the middle with no invo save - AKA not a viable unit.
Assault cannon RZBs - Great all around weapon platform - crucial weakness - short range/penalty for moving/ gets assaulted because you have no screens making it worthless.
Predators - Our best tank- great firepower - Very mediocre everything else T7/no invo/expensive per wound/-1 to hit if it moves/worthless if it gets assaulted. (compare to a crimson hunter - see why it sucks)
Repulsor - Hilariously high number of light guns - hilariously easy to kill for a 300 point model. Not viable.
Sorry this whole post reads like you don't know how to play space marines, no wonder you think their awful.
Scouts are bad? Nope scouts are great at what you need them to do namely block deepstrikers and infiltarators.
Need raven guard to infiltrate some helblasters? Take a RG detachment. The rest of your list can use crunchy Rowboat.
I pretty much ignore Xenomancer now, he has never had anything good to say about SM. Hellblasters have an effective range of 36" - it’s not rocket science.
While I love the Repulsor I don’t use it as much because of the point sink. Redemptors however are really good, I run one with plasma and the other with MOG - they do some work.
...So I'm guessing you have a reason why Assault Marines aren't terrible?
Cheapest Deep Strike capable unit in the codex I think. Takes a FA slot for brigade with a unique role in that slot. People say they suck at melee but imo the most valuable thing about melee sometimes is just forcing a unit to not fire next turn.
Not to mention they would have more of a place if people played with more terrain, particularly ruins. Not every unit has to be equally viable on the sort of tables I see most tournaments run.
Ideally they would be a point less. Assault Marines pay 3 points for their Jump Packs while Vanguard pay 2, which is odd.
Primark G wrote: SM are great but they will never get a fair shake here due to the sentiment prevailing in these parts. Thus it is a waste of time to argue the point.
Robby G ultramarines are really the only competitive list for pure marines, and even that has been kind of limp as of late. It's not like we pulled this opinions out of thin air, If you check the blood of kittens rankings, space marines are decidedly mediocre. Go check the ultramarines winning lists, and you'll see they bring as few marines as possible, especially the most recent ones. The current ITC faction rules muddy the waters, but if you look at the lists it's pretty clear space marines aren't doing well.
The issue is that marines haven't been doing well for a long time, even in 7th ed you had to give them hundreds of points worth of free units and a silver bullet in the form of grav to make them competitive. While there have been many changes with 8th ed, the fundamental challenges of marines haven't changed. Being a master of none puts them on their back foot whenever they fight specialist, which is made worse by the fact they are bad at controlling the flow of battle. Another issue is the game is also so saturated with power armor that everyone brings weapons to deal with power armor just as a matter of course. An issue that GW is only making worse. Primaris marines try to address this by making them master of some, but GW has crippled them with the restrictions on load out.
Here is the thing - top players have always eschewed using Space Marine armies plus they look for spamming and cheap ways to win, they are not always the best players by any means. I am doing very well with my Ultramarines army.
So to see if I'm picking up what you're putting down:
1.) Top players eschew marines for no good reason, have always done so.
a.) Demonstrably false, top players played the gak out of gladius lists. I'd go so far as to say top players out of all players care the least about faction and fluff, they will play whatever is easiest to win with.
2.) It's not because marines are bad, it's just the top players are looking for easy ways to win.
a.) Since the thread is about competition, good is defined having an advantage in competitive games, which makes it easier to win. If marines are not easy to win with, you can't define them as good in a competitive sense.
3.) Top players aren't necessarily the best players.
a.) Best is often subjective, so lets do something quantifiable instead. Since this is a thread about competition, the "best" players are those that are most successful in competitions. So a priori, the best players are the top players.
4.) You are doing great with your ultramarines
a.) Anecdotal, it would be like me saying I'm doing well with my necrons so necrons are great.
I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.
Primark G wrote: There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -
Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor
!Warning wall of text incoming!
I'm curious, can you point me to a competitive list that used any of these units and won or placed well in a major event or GT? Also, why do you think these units are so good?
The only comp I see performing well at major tournies is RG, Stormravens (which didn't even make your list), tiggy and some scouts. I'd also include some of the sicarnian pattern tanks as "good" units (although my local doesn't allow FW )
These units are okay in the marine book but compared to options from other army they are middling at best.
Hellblasters are good but the require a lot of support units to use efficiently. Running them as RG is probably the best bet but then you have 600 points of RG (2x hellblasters, something else to fill out a spear head, captain with a JP, ancient is right around 600) Outperformed by good units from other dexs
Intercessors are okay but don't have a large enough footprint to prevent deepstriking and offensively they are a joke (less than 1 wound per turn of shooting against MEQ, .66 x .5 x .5 x 5 = .825 for 90 points will take you how many turns to earn your points back) there are much better mid-field objective campers (tac squads with heavy bolters, scout squads, dev squads)
Scouts are good mostly for their deployment. Adding a heavy bolter to take advantage of the strat is okay and a storm bolter on the sarge is gravy. Still out-performed by a lot of other options in competitive dex.
Redemptor. We disagree a lot on this choice. Degrading profile, too many points, -1 to hit and move. Running it as IH or RG helps with survivability but it costs too many points to include enough other targets so that it doesn't get shot to pieces. PoTMS would really help this as well as that plasma cannon being 3d3 (which would then put it on my list for good units). It pays too much for its close combat abilities to only use as a dakka platform but it suffers to hit penalties trying to get it into combat so you are spending points for abilities you will only use for 1/2 to 1/3 of the game. Venerable dreads are a much better point investment and again this option is outclassed by many options from other dexs. Considering I coulod get 2x mortis dreads for about the same cost with 24 heavy bolter shots or 27 shots from a sicaran punisher for less points @ 36" I'm not sure why I'd take a redemptor, ever.
Inceptors With the points changes to CA these guys are fun but I find them to be surprisingly fragile. Against armies I can deep strike against they at least get one good round of shooting but by then most of the other good targets for my enemy are gone and they get focused down/assaulted after they land. They work really well in RGs re-roll bubble but don't work so well without those re-rolls. I feel these guys suffer from what most of the dex does is that they are costed with the assumption they are in that re-roll bubble and if they are not their performance falls off a cliff. Good mobility, I'd love if their range was 24" but no big deal. I'd never use the plasma ones as they are way too fragile. Again for the marine dex they're good but compared against good units from other dexs they fall way short.
HQ including special characters I'm assuming you mean ultramarines (and Lias issadon he's fun). Tiggy is great, captians and LTs are pretty much what make the army viable, librarians are okay (I wish they had better powers, null zone is so situational sometimes it's a game winner but others it's a waste) I like chronus but with ITC rules whatever he is driving becomes a point pinata and dies asap.
Assault Centurians Another unit I really disagree with you on and not just because it is impossible to get them up the field without investing another 300 points into the unit. Once you get them up the field they only get to engage what your opponent wants them to and then that's it. They can't sit back and wait for the opponent to come to you and counter charge because they are that slow and expensive. 200+ points for 7 attacks is a bad investment on a unit that can move 4+d6 a turn and dies to anything beyond a light breeze. You're better off spending these points on a contemptor dread or pretty much anything else. Are you sure this isn't a typo?
Assault cannon RZBs Hard to argue with this choice. Amazing vehicle for SM but with ITC champion missions being what they are you can't field 5+ of these guys anymore since most tournies (competitive events) use the ITC missions and only half-assing armor will just get them shot off the table 1st turn. But compare these guys to options from other dexs (for 28 more points you can have a LRuss with 40 shots, no -1 for moving which does about twice the wounds to MEQ, has more toughness and t8 is very valuable with the types of weapons out there, eldar, 6+ on s4s AND gets tactics) Again, excellent for the marine dex but merely good when compared to other dexs options.
Predator Suffers from the same "but other armies do it better" and "you better have 5 of them because 2-3 are going to pop first turn" like most of the stuff on this list. Pred AC is good for 40 points but the -1 ap just isn't enough (-2 ap and then we'd have something). Also T7 3+ might as well be a wet paper sack in the current meta. They perform really well with killshot but that requires a 500ish point investment and goes out the window after turn 1. Works really well with RG (heavy bolters and pred AC) but then that really limits your tactical options because you really want them to stay still with the -1 to hit penalty.
Repulsor Again I strongly disagree with this inclusion as well. 300 points is a major investment and it just doesn't get enough done to be worth it. Get rid of the transport ability and make it cost 225-250 or get rid of most of the guns and let it be a transport for 200 and it might have a spot. A 4++ would go a long way to make it more survivable but there is just too much anti-tank firepower at a competitive table to make this thing work. You'd need to field at least 2 of them and other armor to achieve sufficient target saturation and that is hard to do in marine armies. There's a reason you don't see these or Land Raiders in tournament lists.
TL;DR:Some of these units are good in comparison to other units in the marine dex. Most of these don't appear in any competitive list that has won or placed well in a major and when compared to good units from other dexes almost all of them are inferior by a substantial margin.
I don't see how any of these units are the answer to making marines competitive or making a competitive marine list (unless we are just competing against other marines).
What's the list that you are running that is doing so well against GT winning lists?
Maybe that will give us some insight into what combos/strats you are using to make these units work because I just can't see it while getting my helmets beat in by dark reapers, shinning spears, wave serpants, wraiths, oblits, cultists, berzerkers, noise marines, manticores, basilisks, guardsmen, russes, assassins, plasma scions, mortars, genestealers, carnifexes, flyrants, morry+magnus, DPs, blightlaunchers, drones, celestine+repressors+meltas, hella boyz and the occasional Y'vhra.
How long has eighth been out now? Some Bobby G gun lines have won major events. Gladius was great but that was old edition.
One point I’d like to make is Hellblasters are simply point and click... Ultramarines can burn 1 CP reroll 1s. I run Inceptors with plasma exterminators - five man squad... this seems like the magic number for me and obviously you don’t throw them into melee. They can deep strike, highly mobile and 2d3 shots per model is rock solid with 18" range - they are great with the point reduction now. There might be better units that basically do the same things as the Predator but it’s really good at what it does and is fairly costed... I like it better than RZBs TBH.
I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.
This is as of last September...
Below is the current breakdown of what armies are winning events. The list combines all the top lists for 8th edition 2017 ITC season events only, taking only the top three from each Major or GT.
9 Ultramarines
9 Astra Militarum
7 Daemons
5 Chaos Space Marines
5 Ynnari.
4 Orks.
4 Space Marines
3 T'au Empire
SM are the 19th (out of 29) ranked army ranked by average ITC points (bottom 3rd) and that number is inflated by early dominance before other codexes dropped. This is data from thousands of tournaments, the only armies performing worse are:
Tau Empire 59
Imperial Knights 59
Grey Knights 58
Drukhari 58
Dark Angels 57
Adeptus Mechanicus 56
Space Wolves 54
Necrons 53
Deathwatch 52
Tied with nids which won't last long since Nids are performing much better since the codex has come out.
I'm not sure how aware the "sm are okay you're just doing it wrong" are of the current competitive meta so I'd suggest people take a listen to this which breaks down the performance of all of the factions from thousands of games and see how much of an outlier your experiences are:
10d3 (or 15) shots w/ rerolls, 7 unsaved v MEQ, 5 vs t7 and 3 vs t8+for 300 points and a command point is not really a point efficient points per wound inflicted compared to what other good units from other armies get. (overcharging is dangerous on the unit but with re-rolls only a 50% chance of losing one but to lose a 2 w model that cost about 60 points seems like a big risk to me) With overcharge you are pretty much trading this unit for whatever they end up shooting at (since you need to be within 18" or closer if your enemy has any screen) and there isn't a lot worth 300 points that they kill in one turn.
They work for Dark Angels, not so much for vanilla SM unless you have a very specific target you are going after.
I have beat Nidz every time I played them this edition with their new codex - don’t take me wrong they are the schnitzel but then again maybe I’m just another lucky guy.
So you don’t know a good acumen of tactics for Inceptors - they are a support unit, you don’t throw them away chasing after some hard target you want to erase. If you combine them with other units to finish off a unit they do just fine. Inceptors are really good now.
How long has eighth been out now? Some Bobby G gun lines have won major events. Gladius was great but that was old edition.
One point I’d like to make is Hellblasters are simply point and click... Ultramarines can burn 1 CP reroll 1s. I run Inceptors with plasma exterminators - five man squad... this seems like the magic number for me and obviously you don’t throw them into melee. They can deep strike, highly mobile and 2d3 shots per model is rock solid with 18" range - they are great with the point reduction now. There might be better units that basically do the same things as the Predator but it’s really good at what it does and is fairly costed... I like it better than RZBs TBH.
I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.
This is as of last September...
Below is the current breakdown of what armies are winning events. The list combines all the top lists for 8th edition 2017 ITC season events only, taking only the top three from each Major or GT.
9 Ultramarines
9 Astra Militarum
7 Daemons
5 Chaos Space Marines
5 Ynnari.
4 Orks.
4 Space Marines
3 T'au Empire
Check the lists, they aren't marines lists, here is tom leighton:
4 storm ravens, tiggy and robby G, with 10 scouts and two assassins. That pattern holds for all but one of the six most recent wins, that's why I told you to go check the lists. People aren't playing ultramarines, they are playing flyer spam starring Robby G as a cheerleader.
4 storm ravens, tiggy and robby G, with 10 scouts and two assassins. That pattern holds for all but one of the six most recent wins, that's why I told you to go check the lists. People aren't playing ultramarines, they are playing flyer spam starring Robby G as a cheerleader.
Uhhh...how is that not playing Ultramarines? That'd be like me saying, "Tau players weren't playing Tau, they were playing Riptide Wing" or "Eldar weren't playing Eldar, they were playing Scatbikes and Wraithknights" in 7th. That'd be just silly. Spamming the most powerful units for your faction is the norm in tournaments. Emphasis on "for your faction." Like Ultramarines with its flyers. It comes across like you're trying to redefine factions or move the goalposts because you're being proven wrong.
I'm going to jump in with some two cents about some things with the disclaimer that I am not a national level tournament player, but I feel some things should be said about some point raised:
Scouts: decent rules on these guys, mixed with being 2ppm cheaper than Tacticals (and the cheapest troop choice for Marines period) make these a reasonable bare bones choice for someone looking to fill their Troops quota without loading up on a bunch of stuff. A squad of 5 with bolters will only run 55 points which is a steal for Marine players, and even if you go up to ten they'll only set you back 110 points base.
Basically you use these guys a lot like Battle Sisters: slightly more fragile versions of Marines whom you can use to hold objectives or support other units via shooting at a medium to close range (basically just inside of Rapid Fire range).
Now they aren't going to be more points efficient than Imperial Guard, or some things in other armies, but they will at least give you some cheaper troops you can use to do things with if you're one of those people avoiding the Imperial Soup approach to list building.
Marines in General:
We can argue points efficiency all day, but honestly I feel that's better suited as a tool to decide to take codex unit a or codex unit b inside of the same codex. Once you start comparing options inside of different armies with all the different toys they have it gets hard to give fair assessments to things.
Bare bones Tactical Marines running bolters can put more wounds on a wide array of units while not taking as many wounds back. I've crunched numbers on this and this is one of the reasons I actually feel that the current points system actually has a fair amount of balance when we exclude all other factors and bonuses. When we start factoring in all the ways an army can buff itself is when the scale of balance basically gives up and runs home crying tears of blood.
What I've come to see as a problem is less the points costs for specific models, or even wargear, but rather all the things armies are being given for free.
The worst offender of these is definitely stratagems. Marines are currently paying 1-2 more command points for a number of stratagems that other armies have, but only have to pay a single point for. Yes, Marines are "tankier" than other armies, but they're still largely single wound models (outside of more elite units like Primaris and Terminator models), and even then they don't match the potential damage out put or wound count of horde armies of the same points level. 130 points can get you 10 points of Tactical Marines, or 32 Guardsmen, or 32 Termagaunts, or 12 Scouts, or.... you get the point. The slight bump from S3 to S4 for a bolter with no AP value is not enough to make up for lower number of shots (even with the 1/6 increase in wounding against most things, or the 1/6 increase in hitting most things compared to a number of models/units) and the slight bump in toughness and save over some units doesn't give the Marines the staying power to really fix the problem either.
Sure cover gives Marines a 2+ save but the combination of how many ways there are to strip cover, and the number of ways there are to reduce a Marine's armour save means that any cover you have needs to basically block line of sight or it's not going to benefit the unit.
I know this sounds odd considering that I starting by saying that Marines aren't that bad, but remember, that's only in a perfect vacuum where we compare the number of wounds traded, not the points lost from said wounds.
And let's not even get into the mess that is Orders versus Chapter Tactics. I'm still trying to work out how Marines, who have hundreds of years of training and combat experience over normal humans, are less tactically flexible than humans, many of which were only fully trained en route to whatever theater of war they're being sent to die in.
Even Guilliman, the tactical genius who penned the original Codex Astartes which was said to have tactics for just about every situation, every foe known to man at that time, and every possible way to cordinate your forces doesn't even escape this problem. Humans who probably haven't even started shaving yet are more capable of adjusting tactics on the fly than a PRIMARCH. What. The. Smegging. Warp.
I'm not saying Marines should have Orders, oh definitely not, but they should have rules under their Chapter Tactics you can adjust to. Say two, maybe three things that are themed around how the chapter handles things. One for facing foes that outnumber them, one for facing big threats (like Primarchs, knights, ect), and one for dealing with MEQ. Something you can have a unit change from one to the next based on what you want it to do that turn (just like you can with Orders only the unit doesn't need an HQ to turn the rule on, they unit just does it).
Basically, the Marines need the tactical flexibility that makes them stand out in the fluff for them to stand out on the table, and they need to be able to do it without paying extra on stratagems that everyone else gets cheaper at the discount store.
Primaris:
Okay, I'm done venting like a warp core threatening to breach and can calmly state my case about Primaris.
Primaris Marines aren't solely to be what we think Marines "should" be like. I mean it's definitely part of it, and it feels that was part of the design goal with their rules and stats, but I think there is another point to be made for them and their limited wargear options.
See, the Primaris are trying to be what we feel an army of elite post-humans should be while also calling back to the Horus Heresy with specialized units that focus around one task (thinning hordes, killing elite units, ect). Horus Heresy armies play more like powered armoured Eldar with units synergizing with each other to accomplish goals. It's a neat nod to how someone like Guilliman would likely have established the program during the days of the Scouring Era before the final form of Space Marines Chapters were likely founded. Basically they're the Legions given a modern, more chapter focused, take.
Tabletop wise though I feel that they basically suffer from the same problems regular Marines do. They are easily outgunned and can be suppressed due to the high number of wounds enemy armies are currently bringing to the table, and while tougher than regular Marines their extra cost for that additional toughness just makes them face the same problem at an increased rate.
Speaking from experience with Sisters: when you can bring more models to the table than the opponent, your chances of winning increase just because they won't be able to kill everything fast enough.
This whole mess for both kinds of Marines is only compounded further by the fact that the anti-horde weapons of old are basically not functioning well enough. They don't scale well to large units (I really feel they should be on a D3 system with small blasts getting an extra die if the unit has ten or more models and the large blasts getting a D3 for every 5 models in the target unit, with both getting at least one die) nor do they points cost appropriately for what they can do on the table. This poor functionality for anti-horde weapons is frankly why things like the Vindicator aren't seeing games nearly as much as they should.
I loved taking my Storm hawk interceptor as an anti flyer unit seeing as how I play Tau and Eldar a lot.
Now all I see is a disappointment after seeing the Crimson
Hunter Exarch in the CWE codex.
A majority of my games is placing guys, moving them if i get first turn and removing them. I understand having different things in different armies but I'm at a loss here...
Fight the good fight Primark. It's refreshing to see someone stand up against the total delusions of the usual suspects. Space marines are absolutely a competitive codex, the fact that had the same amount of wins as the "overpowered" imperial guard last years, including a list that had 6 squads of tactical marines should be enough to show that the claims of marines being the worse are bald faced lies but they're keep on going.
ClockworkZion wrote: I'm going to jump in with some two cents about some things with the disclaimer that I am not a national level tournament player, but I feel some things should be said about some point raised:
Scouts: decent rules on these guys, mixed with being 2ppm cheaper than Tacticals (and the cheapest troop choice for Marines period) make these a reasonable bare bones choice for someone looking to fill their Troops quota without loading up on a bunch of stuff. A squad of 5 with bolters will only run 55 points which is a steal for Marine players, and even if you go up to ten they'll only set you back 110 points base.
Basically you use these guys a lot like Battle Sisters: slightly more fragile versions of Marines whom you can use to hold objectives or support other units via shooting at a medium to close range (basically just inside of Rapid Fire range).
Now they aren't going to be more points efficient than Imperial Guard, or some things in other armies, but they will at least give you some cheaper troops you can use to do things with if you're one of those people avoiding the Imperial Soup approach to list building.
Marines in General:
We can argue points efficiency all day, but honestly I feel that's better suited as a tool to decide to take codex unit a or codex unit b inside of the same codex. Once you start comparing options inside of different armies with all the different toys they have it gets hard to give fair assessments to things.
Bare bones Tactical Marines running bolters can put more wounds on a wide array of units while not taking as many wounds back. I've crunched numbers on this and this is one of the reasons I actually feel that the current points system actually has a fair amount of balance when we exclude all other factors and bonuses. When we start factoring in all the ways an army can buff itself is when the scale of balance basically gives up and runs home crying tears of blood.
What I've come to see as a problem is less the points costs for specific models, or even wargear, but rather all the things armies are being given for free.
The worst offender of these is definitely stratagems. Marines are currently paying 1-2 more command points for a number of stratagems that other armies have, but only have to pay a single point for. Yes, Marines are "tankier" than other armies, but they're still largely single wound models (outside of more elite units like Primaris and Terminator models), and even then they don't match the potential damage out put or wound count of horde armies of the same points level. 130 points can get you 10 points of Tactical Marines, or 32 Guardsmen, or 32 Termagaunts, or 12 Scouts, or.... you get the point. The slight bump from S3 to S4 for a bolter with no AP value is not enough to make up for lower number of shots (even with the 1/6 increase in wounding against most things, or the 1/6 increase in hitting most things compared to a number of models/units) and the slight bump in toughness and save over some units doesn't give the Marines the staying power to really fix the problem either.
Sure cover gives Marines a 2+ save but the combination of how many ways there are to strip cover, and the number of ways there are to reduce a Marine's armour save means that any cover you have needs to basically block line of sight or it's not going to benefit the unit.
I know this sounds odd considering that I starting by saying that Marines aren't that bad, but remember, that's only in a perfect vacuum where we compare the number of wounds traded, not the points lost from said wounds.
And let's not even get into the mess that is Orders versus Chapter Tactics. I'm still trying to work out how Marines, who have hundreds of years of training and combat experience over normal humans, are less tactically flexible than humans, many of which were only fully trained en route to whatever theater of war they're being sent to die in.
Even Guilliman, the tactical genius who penned the original Codex Astartes which was said to have tactics for just about every situation, every foe known to man at that time, and every possible way to cordinate your forces doesn't even escape this problem. Humans who probably haven't even started shaving yet are more capable of adjusting tactics on the fly than a PRIMARCH. What. The. Smegging. Warp.
I'm not saying Marines should have Orders, oh definitely not, but they should have rules under their Chapter Tactics you can adjust to. Say two, maybe three things that are themed around how the chapter handles things. One for facing foes that outnumber them, one for facing big threats (like Primarchs, knights, ect), and one for dealing with MEQ. Something you can have a unit change from one to the next based on what you want it to do that turn (just like you can with Orders only the unit doesn't need an HQ to turn the rule on, they unit just does it).
Basically, the Marines need the tactical flexibility that makes them stand out in the fluff for them to stand out on the table, and they need to be able to do it without paying extra on stratagems that everyone else gets cheaper at the discount store.
Primaris:
Okay, I'm done venting like a warp core threatening to breach and can calmly state my case about Primaris.
Primaris Marines aren't solely to be what we think Marines "should" be like. I mean it's definitely part of it, and it feels that was part of the design goal with their rules and stats, but I think there is another point to be made for them and their limited wargear options.
See, the Primaris are trying to be what we feel an army of elite post-humans should be while also calling back to the Horus Heresy with specialized units that focus around one task (thinning hordes, killing elite units, ect). Horus Heresy armies play more like powered armoured Eldar with units synergizing with each other to accomplish goals. It's a neat nod to how someone like Guilliman would likely have established the program during the days of the Scouring Era before the final form of Space Marines Chapters were likely founded. Basically they're the Legions given a modern, more chapter focused, take.
Tabletop wise though I feel that they basically suffer from the same problems regular Marines do. They are easily outgunned and can be suppressed due to the high number of wounds enemy armies are currently bringing to the table, and while tougher than regular Marines their extra cost for that additional toughness just makes them face the same problem at an increased rate.
Speaking from experience with Sisters: when you can bring more models to the table than the opponent, your chances of winning increase just because they won't be able to kill everything fast enough.
This whole mess for both kinds of Marines is only compounded further by the fact that the anti-horde weapons of old are basically not functioning well enough. They don't scale well to large units (I really feel they should be on a D3 system with small blasts getting an extra die if the unit has ten or more models and the large blasts getting a D3 for every 5 models in the target unit, with both getting at least one die) nor do they points cost appropriately for what they can do on the table. This poor functionality for anti-horde weapons is frankly why things like the Vindicator aren't seeing games nearly as much as they should.
This whole giant post but I feel you neglected to mention important marine benefits like:
Morale. ATSKNF is not what it was, but theres a lot of mathammer around that doesn't take morale into consideration. In general, marines lose fewer models to morale rolls and this is important.
Weapons. Marines have the largest armory in the game, as well as the most options available to many of their squads, which is big. Sisters don't have access to Plasma, for example. Guard have Plasma but aren't as reliable. Grav Cannons are also excellent weapons, and a Space Marine specialty. You talk about straight bolter marines to make comparissons, but don't acknowledge that it ain't the bolters that are being relied on to do the damage a lot of the time.
Rerolls. I believe marines have the easiest access to rerolls of any army, and I'm not even talking about Gman. Captains and lieutenants, plus the Chapter Master upgrade, or even Salamanders Tactics if you want to bring army traits into it.
. . . .
Guillimans rerolls are great and all, but IMO his bonus is more effective when you're shooting weapons at the wrong targets, like Assault Cannons at tanks. If you take the Chapter Master + Lieutenant combo and shoot at the right targets (Meaning where weapons are wounding on a 3+, like Las against vehicles and Plasma/Grav vs. Elites) the difference between Gman and the Lieutenant for wound rolls is less. You also save about 200 points.
My more competetive marine lists are swarms of marines with rerolls and big guns. I'm working my way towards a list with 90ish power armored bodies and I think it'll be pretty solid.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Fight the good fight Primark. It's refreshing to see someone stand up against the total delusions of the usual suspects. Space marines are absolutely a competitive codex, the fact that had the same amount of wins as the "overpowered" imperial guard last years, including a list that had 6 squads of tactical marines should be enough to show that the claims of marines being the worse are bald faced lies but they're keep on going.
Remember how in 6th edition there was a list with 3 Rubric Marine squads and Ahrimam and people talked about how that was proof that Thousand Sons were competitive?
ClockworkZion wrote: I'm going to jump in with some two cents about some things with the disclaimer that I am not a national level tournament player, but I feel some things should be said about some point raised:
Scouts: decent rules on these guys, mixed with being 2ppm cheaper than Tacticals (and the cheapest troop choice for Marines period) make these a reasonable bare bones choice for someone looking to fill their Troops quota without loading up on a bunch of stuff. A squad of 5 with bolters will only run 55 points which is a steal for Marine players, and even if you go up to ten they'll only set you back 110 points base.
Basically you use these guys a lot like Battle Sisters: slightly more fragile versions of Marines whom you can use to hold objectives or support other units via shooting at a medium to close range (basically just inside of Rapid Fire range).
Now they aren't going to be more points efficient than Imperial Guard, or some things in other armies, but they will at least give you some cheaper troops you can use to do things with if you're one of those people avoiding the Imperial Soup approach to list building.
Marines in General:
We can argue points efficiency all day, but honestly I feel that's better suited as a tool to decide to take codex unit a or codex unit b inside of the same codex. Once you start comparing options inside of different armies with all the different toys they have it gets hard to give fair assessments to things.
Bare bones Tactical Marines running bolters can put more wounds on a wide array of units while not taking as many wounds back. I've crunched numbers on this and this is one of the reasons I actually feel that the current points system actually has a fair amount of balance when we exclude all other factors and bonuses. When we start factoring in all the ways an army can buff itself is when the scale of balance basically gives up and runs home crying tears of blood.
What I've come to see as a problem is less the points costs for specific models, or even wargear, but rather all the things armies are being given for free.
The worst offender of these is definitely stratagems. Marines are currently paying 1-2 more command points for a number of stratagems that other armies have, but only have to pay a single point for. Yes, Marines are "tankier" than other armies, but they're still largely single wound models (outside of more elite units like Primaris and Terminator models), and even then they don't match the potential damage out put or wound count of horde armies of the same points level. 130 points can get you 10 points of Tactical Marines, or 32 Guardsmen, or 32 Termagaunts, or 12 Scouts, or.... you get the point. The slight bump from S3 to S4 for a bolter with no AP value is not enough to make up for lower number of shots (even with the 1/6 increase in wounding against most things, or the 1/6 increase in hitting most things compared to a number of models/units) and the slight bump in toughness and save over some units doesn't give the Marines the staying power to really fix the problem either.
Sure cover gives Marines a 2+ save but the combination of how many ways there are to strip cover, and the number of ways there are to reduce a Marine's armour save means that any cover you have needs to basically block line of sight or it's not going to benefit the unit.
I know this sounds odd considering that I starting by saying that Marines aren't that bad, but remember, that's only in a perfect vacuum where we compare the number of wounds traded, not the points lost from said wounds.
And let's not even get into the mess that is Orders versus Chapter Tactics. I'm still trying to work out how Marines, who have hundreds of years of training and combat experience over normal humans, are less tactically flexible than humans, many of which were only fully trained en route to whatever theater of war they're being sent to die in.
Even Guilliman, the tactical genius who penned the original Codex Astartes which was said to have tactics for just about every situation, every foe known to man at that time, and every possible way to cordinate your forces doesn't even escape this problem. Humans who probably haven't even started shaving yet are more capable of adjusting tactics on the fly than a PRIMARCH. What. The. Smegging. Warp.
I'm not saying Marines should have Orders, oh definitely not, but they should have rules under their Chapter Tactics you can adjust to. Say two, maybe three things that are themed around how the chapter handles things. One for facing foes that outnumber them, one for facing big threats (like Primarchs, knights, ect), and one for dealing with MEQ. Something you can have a unit change from one to the next based on what you want it to do that turn (just like you can with Orders only the unit doesn't need an HQ to turn the rule on, they unit just does it).
Basically, the Marines need the tactical flexibility that makes them stand out in the fluff for them to stand out on the table, and they need to be able to do it without paying extra on stratagems that everyone else gets cheaper at the discount store.
Primaris:
Okay, I'm done venting like a warp core threatening to breach and can calmly state my case about Primaris.
Primaris Marines aren't solely to be what we think Marines "should" be like. I mean it's definitely part of it, and it feels that was part of the design goal with their rules and stats, but I think there is another point to be made for them and their limited wargear options.
See, the Primaris are trying to be what we feel an army of elite post-humans should be while also calling back to the Horus Heresy with specialized units that focus around one task (thinning hordes, killing elite units, ect). Horus Heresy armies play more like powered armoured Eldar with units synergizing with each other to accomplish goals. It's a neat nod to how someone like Guilliman would likely have established the program during the days of the Scouring Era before the final form of Space Marines Chapters were likely founded. Basically they're the Legions given a modern, more chapter focused, take.
Tabletop wise though I feel that they basically suffer from the same problems regular Marines do. They are easily outgunned and can be suppressed due to the high number of wounds enemy armies are currently bringing to the table, and while tougher than regular Marines their extra cost for that additional toughness just makes them face the same problem at an increased rate.
Speaking from experience with Sisters: when you can bring more models to the table than the opponent, your chances of winning increase just because they won't be able to kill everything fast enough.
This whole mess for both kinds of Marines is only compounded further by the fact that the anti-horde weapons of old are basically not functioning well enough. They don't scale well to large units (I really feel they should be on a D3 system with small blasts getting an extra die if the unit has ten or more models and the large blasts getting a D3 for every 5 models in the target unit, with both getting at least one die) nor do they points cost appropriately for what they can do on the table. This poor functionality for anti-horde weapons is frankly why things like the Vindicator aren't seeing games nearly as much as they should.
This whole giant post but I feel you neglected to mention important marine benefits like:
Morale. ATSKNF is not what it was, but theres a lot of mathammer around that doesn't take morale into consideration. In general, marines lose fewer models to morale rolls and this is important.
Honestly, I'd consider this better if it weren't for the fact that re-rolls can just as often screw you over with morale and that horde armies are completely getting around morale, you know, the only thing that was built in to balance them. Orks at Ld30, Nids with Synaspe, and Guard with their MSU-style list that ensures casualties are capped at 10 at best all means that these armies are not losing models in the numbers they should.
Basically, this should be a strength of the Marine codex, but it's out performed by horde armies who range from ignoring it to ensuring that they have at least three times the number of individual units you do so you can't force wounds to overflow into their guys.
Weapons. Marines have the largest armory in the game, as well as the most options available to many of their squads, which is big. Sisters don't have access to Plasma, for example. Guard have Plasma but aren't as reliable. Grav Cannons are also excellent weapons, and a Space Marine specialty. You talk about straight bolter marines to make comparissons, but don't acknowledge that it ain't the bolters that are being relied on to do the damage a lot of the time.
Save for grav and slightly fancier bolters Guard have all the toys Marines do, plus several Marines don't, on cheaper bodies and tanks meaning that even if you do kill them they're down a lot smaller chunks of their army than a Marine player is. It also means they can afford greater redunancy (aka "spam") than a Marine player can. I'm not saying these weapons aren't good, but (and I'm just making up an example with fake points because I don't remember how much a plasmagun is, so I just went with 15 points here) a 19 point Guardsman is more expendable than a 27 point Marine (meaning Overcharging is less of a concern) and you can fit more of said Guardsman into a list too.
And since you mentioned Bolters, let's briefly touch on that mess. They basically make up most of the weapons on the table for a Marine army due to being everywhere in the army. The fact that they're just slightly better at wounding than a lasgun (except against T5 where it middles out since they both wound on 5s) but have no built in AP value (at least for the basic ones) makes them rather underwhelming compared to the lore and compared to even just before. I mean, you've even pointed out the problem, Marines AREN'T able to rely on their basic weapons to do things as well as they should. When the most common weapon in your army isn't effective at doing anything there is a definite problem there.
Rerolls. I believe marines have the easiest access to rerolls of any army, and I'm not even talking about Gman. Captains and lieutenants, plus the Chapter Master upgrade, or even Salamanders Tactics if you want to bring army traits into it.
Re-rolls are pretty key, but let's be honest, you pay a lot for what is basically a "re-roll caddy" in this edition. I see people building armies around getting re-rolls more than I do see people building interesting characters for their HQs or trying for unusual combinations. The fact that you're forcing an army to devote a chunk of it's points for something that could have been a standard rule (with full rerolls being the aura) to represent the level of training and consistency of a Marine's combat skill means that even if you're playing different chapters the core of the army will basically never be changed.
Basically, while the HQs look nice, they're hurting the flexibility of the Marines and pushing people to play the same basic armies over, and over and over. Heck, even Black Templars are pushed more towards a MSU shooting army to be effective than running hordes of dudes up a field to show off their chainsword collection to the enemy.
This makes Marine become repetitive, and easy to plan around what to face because everyone is being forced into very similar builds to be effective. And let's be honest, for Marine players, that's a horrible thing.
. . . .
Guillimans rerolls are great and all, but IMO his bonus is more effective when you're shooting weapons at the wrong targets, like Assault Cannons at tanks. If you take the Chapter Master + Lieutenant combo and shoot at the right targets (Meaning where weapons are wounding on a 3+, like Las against vehicles and Plasma/Grav vs. Elites) the difference between Gman and the Lieutenant for wound rolls is less. You also save about 200 points.
My more competetive marine lists are swarms of marines with rerolls and big guns. I'm working my way towards a list with 90ish power armored bodies and I think it'll be pretty solid.
I threw some replies in orange so I wouldn't have to muck with quote tags before I've had my caffeine this morning.
I'm not saying Marines can't win, nor am I saying that they should be the best thing out there. Heck, I don't even play Marines currently (I have a Sisters army I'm not playing, and I've started a Custodes army), but it doesn't change that the poster boys for the game are definitely falling short on a lot of levels. Maybe part of it is the focus on Primaris Marines and the lack of a push for the army as a whole to be looked at more closely, or perhaps the issue is that they were the first codex GW did and the studio hadn't gotten a feel for how to balance the army for the new edition when there weren't other codexes to compare it to yet. Heck, it could be all of those things, I don't even know.
What I do know is that Marines are becoming very one note in list design, aren't able to handle hordes effectively, and are hurting on the table due a lot of things that could have been better.
I want Marines to be good, just like I want every army to be good, but they've been struggling for a while now and without some kind of serious overhaul in the long run I'm not sure how they'll manage to be better than mid-tier at best.
Martel732 wrote: Marines just don't punch or take punches like a 13 pt model. They just don't. And then all the complaints stem from this one basic observation.
I think this illustrates a point made earlier (and repeatedly) - you can't just consider one (or even two) factors in cost. If you only think about "taking punches," it ignores all of the other benefits - flexibility in ability to bring heavy weapons in troops choices, access to ObSec, army special rules/synergy, etc. It's easy to make *any* army look bad if you don't consider the whole picture. Imagine what it would
Martel732 wrote: Primaris are closer, but the lack of model range is crippling them right now. The repulsor is really crippling.
Space Marines get a whole new model line and now we have complaints about the lack of model range? (I assume you didn't mean their weapons' range, as it's better than tac marines)
I'm guessing, but I think Martel likely means the lack of available weapons for each specific primaris unit. Not being able to take a heavy or special weapon with intercessors, etc.
Flexibility usually involves making the 13 pt model even more expensive. This puts marines firmly into glass cannon range. If tac marines got a rule to choose gear after the match started, that would be true flexibility. Otherwise you are just paying points to guess.
I am considering all rules when i say that marines don't play like 13 pt models. But yes, most of that is durability and offense.
Porphyrius wrote: I'm guessing, but I think Martel likely means the lack of available weapons for each specific primaris unit. Not being able to take a heavy or special weapon with intercessors, etc.
That I'm fine with, but the lack of option on sergeants and characters is infuriating. Reivers for example would be instantly improved if the sergeant could have even a power sword. (Intercessor sergeant can but a sergeant of dedicated CC unit cannot. Neither kit comes with the bit. GW logic.)
Also, if the Primaris could use normal marine transports or there was a cheaper, more barebones variant of Repulsor, it would make many Primaris units more viable. 300 point tank is just not practical as your only transport option.
Martel732 wrote: Flexibility usually involves making the 13 pt model even more expensive. This puts marines firmly into glass cannon range. If tac marines got a rule to choose gear after the match started, that would be true flexibility. Otherwise you are just paying points to guess.
I am considering all rules when i say that marines don't play like 13 pt models. But yes, most of that is durability and offense.
As a DE player and i see Bloodbrides and cry b.c i would rather have Marines over those 100% the time.
Primark G wrote: MSU pretty much negates the morale phase issue - just saying.
Yet it's a benefit that's incorporated into their point cost that's basically not worth it, just like with DTTFE for the Chaos side.
Combat Squads are still MSU.
So you pay for a full squad for a benefit you aren't going to use because you're planning to split them in half, when you're just better off at minimum size in the first place to get that extra Sergeant model and therefore an extra Combi Weapon.
Martel732 wrote: The repulsor is land raider 2.0 and had all the same problems.
The Repulsor is a grav tank and has the keyword Fly... very hard to lock down in melee... can fallback and still shoot. It has a Repulsor field which makes it even more difficult to charge. The Repulsor also has a lot more dakka than a land raider easily able to destroy or cripple multiple units in one shooting phase - it’s only drawback is the points cost.
Martel732 wrote: The repulsor is land raider 2.0 and had all the same problems.
The Repulsor is a grav tank and has the keyword Fly... very hard to lock down in melee... can fallback and still shoot. It has a Repulsor field which makes it even more difficult to charge. The Repulsor also has a lot more dakka than a land raider easily able to destroy or cripple multiple units in one shooting phase - it’s only drawback is the points cost.
The Repulsor is an incredibly expensive single target sitting on a 3+ save, no Invulnerable save, and no FNP. I have yet to see one survive past turn two because they're so easy for even mediocre anti-tank firepower to focus down, and they're so expensive/well-armed/full of Hellblasters or Aggressors that they're almost always priority target #1.
Primark G wrote: MSU pretty much negates the morale phase issue - just saying.
Yet it's a benefit that's incorporated into their point cost that's basically not worth it, just like with DTTFE for the Chaos side.
Combat Squads are still MSU.
So you pay for a full squad for a benefit you aren't going to use because you're planning to split them in half, when you're just better off at minimum size in the first place to get that extra Sergeant model and therefore an extra Combi Weapon.
Martel732 wrote: The repulsor is land raider 2.0 and had all the same problems.
The Repulsor is a grav tank and has the keyword Fly... very hard to lock down in melee... can fallback and still shoot. It has a Repulsor field which makes it even more difficult to charge. The Repulsor also has a lot more dakka than a land raider easily able to destroy or cripple multiple units in one shooting phase - it’s only drawback is the points cost.
Well if the drawback is that it's too expensive why are you defending it by saying it's good?
It’s a good transport for Aggressors and Hellblasters plus you can toss in some Primaris characters too. I don’t use it but it’s not as bad as some say.
Primark G wrote: It’s a good transport for Aggressors and Hellblasters plus you can toss in some Primaris characters too. I don’t use it but it’s not as bad as some say.
So you don't use it but you know it's good? Right...
The problem is that it tries to be both transport and a battle tank, and doing so becomes too expensive for its durability. All those guns will do jack gak once the tank is dead. And it being the only transport option for the Primaris makes it worse.
Primark G wrote: I said it’s good, not great. I’d rather run a pair of Redemptors.
Those aren't great either. They have same T and save than regular dreads, and once they start taking damage penalties, they no longer hit anything. That plasma cannon is too random and you cannot really move and overcharge. You however want to move in order to use the fist. The heavy flamer is useless, as usual.
Team marines suck: This one particular build (RG, tiggy, stormravens) is the only one placing well at tournies currently. Some random suggestions
Team Nuh-uh: Nuh-uh, I do good in my local meta and before other codexes were released. Dubious list of good units
Team marines suck: That list sucks, marines are tied for 19th place out of 29 armies (6 of the armies behind them do not have codexes...) other facts
Team Nuh-uh. Nuh-uh, strange silence and still no lists or suggestions...
So now that that's done instead of focusing on how bad I think my marines are lets try to get back to the OP's question.
I've been running something like this recently, my local does not allow Forge World or it would look different (would love to play with some sicarians, Lias Issadon, fire raptor, xiphon or a leviathan dread) 2x batallion + vanguard + regen is a lot of CPs.
Ravenguard - bat
HQ LT - JP, storm bolter, chainsword
Captain on bike - storm bolter
Troops
2x scouts w/ boltguns, sarge with storm bolter 1 heavy bolter
1x scouts w/ bp + ccw, sarge with storm bolter + chainsword
AM battalion
tempestor prime command rod
tempestor prime command rod Kurov's aquila
Troops
4x guardsmen, sarge w/ boltgun
Elites
2x MT command squads 4x plasma guns
harker
Heavy
3x basilisks
Inquis vanguard detachment
Inquis grefaux (was celestine + seraphim but had to drop a lot to fit her)
elites
3x eversor assassins. (had a culexus but with char targeting change not sure if he is still worth it)
Very soupy but builds on a core of efficient marine units.
Lots of deepstrike so pressure on enemy to not make deployment mistakes.
Raven guard infiltrate can make a fire-island of agressors, vets and hellblasters for great GEQ, MEQ and even light armor destruction (eff you reapers). Basis and plasma are good for anti armor if necessary.
Guard and scouts provide great board control and push alpha strike CQC armies way back and then can counter drop with deepstrikers. I like the cap on a bike for a few more points than a cap with a jp because with the mobility its almost as good as deepstrike and all he really needs to do is get to the fire island.
Eversors are blenders, greyfax provides denies but I could make that a "black templar" detachment led by the EC for that 4+ deny strat (2 chances to deny that warptime or jump or vital power?)
Basis are great to sit back so then opponent needs to decide to come after my armor and split up/spread out their army so I can find good spots to deepstrike and making the enemy move means they will make mistakes. No LOS means hard to hide. Harker gives re-rolls cheap.
Got marine plasma to deal with flyers and -1 to -2 hit units.
Anti horde - IG troops, vanguard vets, eversors, aggressors, plasma
Anti armor - basilisks, hella plasma
objective camping - rg infiltrate, back field basis, deepstrike scions, scouts
board control - scouts, ig bubble wrap - scouts ig.
Puts a lot of bodies on the table. Has good deepstrike firepower for beta strikes. Good alpha with RG hellblaster, basis, vets and aggressors. Very little armor (basis are way back hopefully out of LOS for most) and lots of bodies requiring a lot of shots.
Performs better than anything I've run revolving around Gman but it is most definitely soup and not SM. Would love to squeeze in some mortars but I can't find any fat to trim. Still get beat down by well tuned lists but at least I feel like I get to use strategy when I play instead of line everything up and shoot.
But this is where I find myself ready to cut the entire SM group because I think other elements would perform their roles much more efficiently but I'm trying to find a way to make my guys work.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Fight the good fight Primark. It's refreshing to see someone stand up against the total delusions of the usual suspects. Space marines are absolutely a competitive codex, the fact that had the same amount of wins as the "overpowered" imperial guard last years, including a list that had 6 squads of tactical marines should be enough to show that the claims of marines being the worse are bald faced lies but they're keep on going.
Remember how in 6th edition there was a list with 3 Rubric Marine squads and Ahrimam and people talked about how that was proof that Thousand Sons were competitive?
Yeah, me neither.
I remember that thread, I thought it was a good thread. I didn't come away from it thinking that Rubric marines were the best thing ever, but that skill does play an important part of the game despite our (including me!) grumbling that list building is the only thing that really matters. That even decidedly meh units can be used smartly and with a purpose, and having a plan with even an okay army is still better than the endless debate about cost effectiveness which is what so much of the "X marine unit is the worst" mentality is based on
Luke_Prowler wrote: Fight the good fight Primark. It's refreshing to see someone stand up against the total delusions of the usual suspects. Space marines are absolutely a competitive codex, the fact that had the same amount of wins as the "overpowered" imperial guard last years, including a list that had 6 squads of tactical marines should be enough to show that the claims of marines being the worse are bald faced lies but they're keep on going.
Remember how in 6th edition there was a list with 3 Rubric Marine squads and Ahrimam and people talked about how that was proof that Thousand Sons were competitive?
Yeah, me neither.
I remember that thread, I thought it was a good thread. I didn't come away from it thinking that Rubric marines were the best thing ever, but that skill does play an important part of the game despite our (including me!) grumbling that list building is the only thing that really matters. That even decidedly meh units can be used smartly and with a purpose, and having a plan with even an okay army is still better than the endless debate about cost effectiveness which is what so much of the "X marine unit is the worst" mentality is based on
So from the one time an army with trash units (pretty sure he had Kairos in there as well, who was pretty damn good IIRC) won you drew the conclusion that it's more worthwhile to work on having a good strategy than to build a good list? That sounds a bit backwards, surely the lesson to learn should be "oh, so this guy won, but it's once and it's a statistical anomaly, Eldar Wave Serpents are still so much better and dominating everything", which is the exact opposite of what you just said.
I fail to see how that was the exact opposite of what I said. What I'm doing is not dismissing everything that might not align with a singular world view. In this case it's not just the six tac sqaud list that's been able to win, there's been several that didn't have gilliman, weren't Ultramarines, and/or didn't spam asscanbacks. And everytime it's resisted with guys saying "Oh that doesn't count" because the arbitrary metrics of what a marine army is or what would make the marine codex "good" is "not this thing that proves me wrong"
Luke_Prowler wrote: I fail to see how that was the exact opposite of what I said. What I'm doing is not dismissing everything that might not align with a singular world view. In this case it's not just the six tac sqaud list that's been able to win, there's been several that didn't have gilliman, weren't Ultramarines, and/or didn't spam asscanbacks. And everytime it's resisted with guys saying "Oh that doesn't count" because the arbitrary metrics of what a marine army is or what would make the marine codex "good" is "not this thing that proves me wrong"
Just to be clear we are talking Codex Space Marines here not all varieties of lower case space marines right? If not then there is that dark angels list and some guy was doing pretty well with blood angels (dante and storm ravens, pretty much same basic concept).
This data is pre-CA nerfs so the most successful lists on this list wouldn't be playable with 10-15% point increases.
If your argument is that the meta hasn't changed since the CWE codex then we can argue that but it doesn't seem the case to me. Which would mean results from before that point would seem to not be relevant to what competitive marine armies are running CURRENTLY. I fail to see the utility of a thread what have marine armies run in the past unless we're talking about how changes to the meta have changed SM unit value.
You guys keep fighting the data that marines are tied for 20th out of 29 factions as far as tournament performance goes.
Six of the factions behind them not having codexes yet.
A lot of that performance inflated by the first couple months of marine codex vs everyone else index.
Which is it, facts matter or personal anecdotes trump thousands of tournament results?
I can't provide any more clear PROOF that marines are an under performing faction. The competitive lists that are winning revolve around guilliman, tiggarius, scouts and flyers (pre CA stormravens, not enough data post CA) except the exception from Da Boyz (which could be a valid counter, I would love to see some analysis on this list). This will most likely change as more codexes are released and the meta adjusts.
My angst is that 20 out of 30 with more codexes to come and the points adjustments in CA punishing the most successful SM builds we sill fall down to the bottom 5 of 29 which will relegate SM to either some niche counter-meta build or we will be at the mercy of whatever new primaris/primarch kits GW is trying to ram down our throats. The more people fight against the FACT that sm are a bottom 1/3rd faction the less likely it is that future adjustments will help this situation and we will end up with even more adjustments like CA which punish an already poorly performing faction while leaving units which are actually dominating alone.
You can’t really make a strong case for or against Sm in general on the basis of a couple months. Once all the codices have dropped then yes. I play almost pure Sm with two assassins. I have nothing against soup lists and they are popular but they are not Sm.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Fight the good fight Primark. It's refreshing to see someone stand up against the total delusions of the usual suspects. Space marines are absolutely a competitive codex, the fact that had the same amount of wins as the "overpowered" imperial guard last years, including a list that had 6 squads of tactical marines should be enough to show that the claims of marines being the worse are bald faced lies but they're keep on going.
Remember how in 6th edition there was a list with 3 Rubric Marine squads and Ahrimam and people talked about how that was proof that Thousand Sons were competitive?
Yeah, me neither.
I remember that thread, I thought it was a good thread. I didn't come away from it thinking that Rubric marines were the best thing ever, but that skill does play an important part of the game despite our (including me!) grumbling that list building is the only thing that really matters. That even decidedly meh units can be used smartly and with a purpose, and having a plan with even an okay army is still better than the endless debate about cost effectiveness which is what so much of the "X marine unit is the worst" mentality is based on
Except if the imbalance were not that bad, we'd have more of those "off" units showing up in every tournament. These are once-in-a-blue-moon moments for a reason.
I'm going to repeat something for emphasis. "--I really don't understand how this one won a major with that many people in it and challenges some of the assumptions I have about SM"
Perhaps your assumptions - and the arguments you're making based on them - have an inherent flaw. It comes across quite poorly to keep making accusations about how bad they are when they have clearly winning lists out there...lists that you admit to not understanding how they work. I'd also caution you against making the "Well, it's an Imperial Soup" argument on one hand while saying X other faction is superior when it is also running soup lists. Either it's a guideline we should apply to all factions when debating this, or none.
Primark G wrote: What about Primaris with two wounds apiece. I know they cost more points but are definitely more robust.
One can build an anti-infantry army with Primaris Marines.
The problem with Primaris is that they have no real anti-tank shooting.
Hellblaster unit with plasma incinerators. A mate has them and they shred anything.
You have to walk them towards the enemy. It will be the opponent's primary target.
With S7 or overloaded S8 they are quite good vs. heavy tanks like LRBTs with T8.
But the enemy will try to remove them at first sight.
Primark G wrote: What about Primaris with two wounds apiece. I know they cost more points but are definitely more robust.
One can build an anti-infantry army with Primaris Marines.
The problem with Primaris is that they have no real anti-tank shooting.
Hellblaster unit with plasma incinerators. A mate has them and they shred anything.
You have to walk them towards the enemy. It will be the opponent's primary target.
With S7 or overloaded S8 they are quite good vs. heavy tanks like LRBTs with T8.
But the enemy will try to remove them at first sight.
Hellblasters do excellent under the buff of Guilliman, but everyone now would throw everything they had at these guys. So to ensure that enough of them can unleash at least one volley of fire at optimum range under the buff of Guilliman, I would take 2 squad of 5 and put them in a dakka Repulsor.
BUT, Damn, that is over 630pts already, plus 385pts for Guilliman, and total 190pts of Tiggy and Techmarine running on foot following it to keep the Repulsor alive Turn 1 and 2. It is already 60% of the army of 2000pts...
Hellblaster unit with plasma incinerators. A mate has them and they shred anything.
You have to walk them towards the enemy. It will be the opponent's primary target.
With S7 or overloaded S8 they are quite good vs. heavy tanks like LRBTs with T8.
But the enemy will try to remove them at first sight.
SftS or Lias would work right? 36” threat range with the regular incinerators.
I didn’t realize that the base incinerator was 30” until now. I haven’t picked up any Primaris stuff up yet but man Hellblasters seem alright.
For some reason Lias doesn't roll with primaris marines (no termies, cents or primaris).
I really wish there were cheaper PSM transports, a drop pod or some other way to keep them off the field until they are ready to shoot. Everyone knows they are good so they don't tend to live very long in my experience.
It is not quite as bad for Primaris as it would be for other marines, as their guns have longer range and they can drop Reivers or Inceptors on objectives. Though neither of those have ob sec, so they're pretty questionable for that job.
bananathug wrote: For some reason Lias doesn't roll with primaris marines (no termies, cents or primaris).
I really wish there were cheaper PSM transports, a drop pod or some other way to keep them off the field until they are ready to shoot. Everyone knows they are good so they don't tend to live very long in my experience.
That sucks. I didn’t realize Lias wasn’t buddies with Primaris Marines.
To be honest, GW would probably sell a ton of Primaris if you could put them in any SM vehicle. But I imagine then people would complain about regular Marines being “phased out”.
Who cares about regular marines being phased out? Except for a bunch of people that aren't going to spend money anyways? Speaking strictly from a business perspective they shouldn't care about that.
I think GW had a good plan to pigeon hole primaris into exclusive transport options. The part they were to stupid to figure out is when you do this you can't have that exclusive option suck horrific dong. I mean really...A fully decked out repulsor should be 250 - not 350 - same can be said for any land raider really.
Also - not making a drop pod primaris is idiotic. fluff wisse how the heck are these guys even getting down to the surface? They aren't allowed to ride in any of the transports! LOL.
I wonder...are they even allowed to ride in Battle Barges?
It is not quite as bad for Primaris as it would be for other marines, as their guns have longer range and they can drop Reivers or Inceptors on objectives. Though neither of those have ob sec, so they're pretty questionable for that job.
It's not good. Period. Having slightly longer range is very meaningless in this situation.
Also everyone knows Objective Secured is an overall useless rule.
Xenomancers wrote: Who cares about regular marines being phased out? Except for a bunch of people that aren't going to spend money anyways? Speaking strictly from a business perspective they shouldn't care about that.
I think GW had a good plan to pigeon hole primaris into exclusive transport options. The part they were to stupid to figure out is when you do this you can't have that exclusive option suck horrific dong. I mean really...A fully decked out repulsor should be 250 - not 350 - same can be said for any land raider really.
Also - not making a drop pod primaris is idiotic. fluff wisse how the heck are these guys even getting down to the surface? They aren't allowed to ride in any of the transports! LOL.
I wonder...are they even allowed to ride in Battle Barges?
I'm fine with a phase out in a couple years. Mainly cause I just built and painted my marines shortly before 8th lol Which I suppose I just entered the hobby at the wrong time
Xenomancers wrote: Who cares about regular marines being phased out? Except for a bunch of people that aren't going to spend money anyways? Speaking strictly from a business perspective they shouldn't care about that.
I think GW had a good plan to pigeon hole primaris into exclusive transport options. The part they were to stupid to figure out is when you do this you can't have that exclusive option suck horrific dong. I mean really...A fully decked out repulsor should be 250 - not 350 - same can be said for any land raider really.
Also - not making a drop pod primaris is idiotic. fluff wisse how the heck are these guys even getting down to the surface? They aren't allowed to ride in any of the transports! LOL.
I wonder...are they even allowed to ride in Battle Barges?
I'm fine with a phase out in a couple years. Mainly cause I just built and painted my marines shortly before 8th lol Which I suppose I just entered the hobby at the wrong time
I'd be totally fine with you using mini marines as intercessors if they phased out minis marines. They also got you pretty good there at the end of 7th. You needed a lot of tactical squad + Devastator boxes to run Gladius properly. Makes sense to get ride of back stock when you are about to invalidate an entire model range in the next year.
Also everyone knows Objective Secured is an overall useless rule.
Maybe that is for marine only at the current stage. Because more often than not marine troops comes in low model counts compare to IG / Nidz / Orks or even cultist heavy CSM. They usually will be out-contested.
December 2016 I had all my marines to run a gladius then boop gathering storm, boop 8th lol
But yeah the wording on Defenders of Humanity needs to be changed to either All infantry/Dreads, or marine troops override the frankly biased numbers game
At the end of the day, a successful Marine army has Bobby G. at a LoW and tries to get the maximum out of his buffs.
The army is not everybodies darling but if you want to play at the high end of a tournament, such a list is almost a must-have. Rant over.
bananathug wrote: Just to be clear we are talking Codex Space Marines here not all varieties of lower case space marines right? If not then there is that dark angels list and some guy was doing pretty well with blood angels (dante and storm ravens, pretty much same basic concept).
This data is pre-CA nerfs so the most successful lists on this list wouldn't be playable with 10-15% point increases.
I am refering to vanilla Space Marines, although I do appreciate the Dark Angels list. On the other hand, with the nature of soup lists I feel like a list composed of several space marine codexs should still count. In terms of lists, this isn't the only time I've seen devastators being used. They're apparently very popular paired with scouts.
If your argument is that the meta hasn't changed since the CWE codex then we can argue that but it doesn't seem the case to me. Which would mean results from before that point would seem to not be relevant to what competitive marine armies are running CURRENTLY. I fail to see the utility of a thread what have marine armies run in the past unless we're talking about how changes to the meta have changed SM unit value.
You guys keep fighting the data that marines are tied for 20th out of 29 factions as far as tournament performance goes.
Six of the factions behind them not having codexes yet.
A lot of that performance inflated by the first couple months of marine codex vs everyone else index.
Which is it, facts matter or personal anecdotes trump thousands of tournament results?
I can't provide any more clear PROOF that marines are an under performing faction. The competitive lists that are winning revolve around guilliman, tiggarius, scouts and flyers (pre CA stormravens, not enough data post CA) except the exception from Da Boyz (which could be a valid counter, I would love to see some analysis on this list). This will most likely change as more codexes are released and the meta adjusts.
My angst is that 20 out of 30 with more codexes to come and the points adjustments in CA punishing the most successful SM builds we sill fall down to the bottom 5 of 29 which will relegate SM to either some niche counter-meta build or we will be at the mercy of whatever new primaris/primarch kits GW is trying to ram down our throats. The more people fight against the FACT that sm are a bottom 1/3rd faction the less likely it is that future adjustments will help this situation and we will end up with even more adjustments like CA which punish an already poorly performing faction while leaving units which are actually dominating alone.
It would presumptuous of me to say the meta hasn't changed since Eldar, but the change is not so drastic that we can just throw all data out the window because of it. Especially since there's been condexs coming out every month. Do we throw out the data every time a codex comes out, so we can more accurately represent meta shifts? BUt then we wouldn't have the "thousands of tournament results" you meantioned in the very next sentence (Warhammer 40k might be a big part of the wargame table top hobby, but I highly doubt they reach hundreds of tournaments per year, let alone thousands).
Where are you getting this "20 out of 30" (and wasn't that number 19 earlier?) number? The data you want to throw out? You aren't providing any proof that marines are bad, only emotional appeals.
The problem is that we have almost no data on competitive results. Blood of kittens was a nice tool in 7th, but in 8th is almost useless, at least with this release schedule. Tournaments require 1 month to adopt publications, then the results appear another month later. In 2 months the meta is beyond old, right now the results there are from November! No CA, no daemons, no DA, no BA, rarely nids.
Spoletta wrote: The problem is that we have almost no data on competitive results. Blood of kittens was a nice tool in 7th, but in 8th is almost useless, at least with this release schedule. Tournaments require 1 month to adopt publications, then the results appear another month later. In 2 months the meta is beyond old, right now the results there are from November! No CA, no daemons, no DA, no BA, rarely nids.
Is there any other source for tournament results?
Nope - not really a better source - you are right about everything though.
It would presumptuous of me to say the meta hasn't changed since Eldar, but the change is not so drastic that we can just throw all data out the window because of it. Especially since there's been condexs coming out every month. Do we throw out the data every time a codex comes out, so we can more accurately represent meta shifts? BUt then we wouldn't have the "thousands of tournament results" you meantioned in the very next sentence (Warhammer 40k might be a big part of the wargame table top hobby, but I highly doubt they reach hundreds of tournaments per year, let alone thousands).
Where are you getting this "20 out of 30" (and wasn't that number 19 earlier?) number? The data you want to throw out? You aren't providing any proof that marines are bad, only emotional appeals.
The thousands of tournament results was unclearly worded. Thousands of games from hundreds of tournaments would have been more clear and the proof for that is nicely provided by the front line gaming guys in their 50th podcast and in their signals from the frontline found here, which I've already linked before:
Those are numbers, not emotional appeals. SM are tied at 16th with 4 other armies with an average of 60 ITC points earned by SM players in over 7,187 recorded games of 40k in 8th edition. The armies are listed in a particular order so I'm guessing there are fractions they are rounding which is where I got the 19th place number (because that is their actual spot on the list) as it seems that an average score from over six thousand games would be very unlikely to be a whole number.
I mention the meta shifting as a way to say that early results favored SM (when they were the only codex or one of a handful of codexes) which was pretty clear from my post. Not that we have to throw out all data from pre-CWE and other 'dex releases but we need to look at the data provided and realize that SM had an advantage in the early stages of 8th which clearly boosted their performance and suppressed the performance of other factions (and even with this advantage the numbers are bad).
I think what team marines suck is trying to get across is that things need to change in order for SM to be competitive vs. team nuh-uh who think anyone who recognizes space marines are struggling in the competitive scene is "completely delusional."
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
What does the name next their name mean...like...the bottom 15 placings at this tourny 13- of the bottom 15 say upstate honor gaurd? Is this some kind of team event?
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How many of the armies that are worse haven't gotten a Codex yet?
There's also the part where Codex: Space Marines was first out and thus have inflated the results in favour of Space Marines. Even with this inflation, it's a lower-midtier army at best.
Plus, Space Marines also had their primary winning-tools damaged.
bananathug wrote: Define very well. Any recent GT victories? How about major recent events? After all this is a thread about COMPETITIVE marine players...
Oh, you are doing good in your local beer and pretzels meta and haven't faced a 30 dark reaper list, or 20 something shining spears, nope no malific lord spam or how about that hot assassin army when it came out. 3x fire raptors, tiggy and gman, morty+magnus, oblits cultists and berserkers, dakka fexes and GS, how's it going against IG lists, plasma scion spam, you know COMPETITIVE LISTS.
Your local experiences do not set the meta for everyone. If you are having a hard time understanding that marines are having trouble in the current meta get outside of your bubble and look at some of the math people present or the recent tournament data. There was a recent podcast breakdown of tournament results that did a good job of breaking down the top factions.
Unless you are the best space marine player in the history of 40k and have some super-secret list that is better than anyone else out there playing your results are an outlier and have little to no bearing on the situation that COMPETITIVE marine players are finding themselves in.
This post is savage and simultaneously 100% accurate.
bananathug wrote: Define very well. Any recent GT victories? How about major recent events? After all this is a thread about COMPETITIVE marine players...
Oh, you are doing good in your local beer and pretzels meta and haven't faced a 30 dark reaper list, or 20 something shining spears, nope no malific lord spam or how about that hot assassin army when it came out. 3x fire raptors, tiggy and gman, morty+magnus, oblits cultists and berserkers, dakka fexes and GS, how's it going against IG lists, plasma scion spam, you know COMPETITIVE LISTS.
Your local experiences do not set the meta for everyone. If you are having a hard time understanding that marines are having trouble in the current meta get outside of your bubble and look at some of the math people present or the recent tournament data. There was a recent podcast breakdown of tournament results that did a good job of breaking down the top factions.
Unless you are the best space marine player in the history of 40k and have some super-secret list that is better than anyone else out there playing your results are an outlier and have little to no bearing on the situation that COMPETITIVE marine players are finding themselves in.
This post is savage and simultaneously 100% accurate.
There are no more M.lords lists tho.... so more like 85%
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How do people keep ignoring the fact that SM had a lot of success when they were the only codex in town which impact their average score? I'm not sure how many ways I can try to explain this and now I just have to chalk it up to willful ignorance.
That's a strange definition of "middle of the road, at worst" (at worst they are 20/29, clearly bottom third). "Middle of the road, for now, at best" would be a more fair characterization (although with the cheaper fire raptors this may change)
There are 6 armies tied/below SM which have yet to get their codex, which will get better than their index versions. So it's not hard to see marines falling to 22-25 of 29. Does that qualify as underpowered?
Model releases, codex priority, unit selections and strength in previous editions have NOTHING TO DO WITH CURRENT COMPETITIVE STRENGTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I doubt many people would agree with your assertion that IG have gotten significantly worse in a competitive setting but I'm willing to wait on actual data to see if the conscript/commissar nerf hurts their performance. They sure didn't get worse than SM.
Changes can happen (looking at you cheap fire-raptors) so I'll agree it's early too say that SM are hopeless/doomed but given GWsCA balancing attempts I'm not sure how much faith I'm willing to put into that. This is why I feel it's important for competitive players to bring up the issues they are facing to make sure crunchy balance issues are on GWs radar.
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How many of the armies that are worse haven't gotten a Codex yet?
There's also the part where Codex: Space Marines was first out and thus have inflated the results in favour of Space Marines. Even with this inflation, it's a lower-midtier army at best.
Plus, Space Marines also had their primary winning-tools damaged.
Exactly this...... If someone's army doesn't have 2-3 top tier lists its straight to "my army is absolute trash and unplayable"
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How do people keep ignoring the fact that SM had a lot of success when they were the only codex in town which impact their average score? I'm not sure how many ways I can try to explain this and now I just have to chalk it up to willful ignorance.
That's a strange definition of "middle of the road, at worst" (at worst they are 20/29, clearly bottom third). "Middle of the road, for now, at best" would be a more fair characterization (although with the cheaper fire raptors this may change)
There are 6 armies tied/below SM which have yet to get their codex, which will get better than their index versions. So it's not hard to see marines falling to 22-25 of 29. Does that qualify as underpowered?
Model releases, codex priority, unit selections and strength in previous editions have NOTHING TO DO WITH CURRENT COMPETITIVE STRENGTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I doubt many people would agree with your assertion that IG have gotten significantly worse in a competitive setting but I'm willing to wait on actual data to see if the conscript/commissar nerf hurts their performance. They sure didn't get worse than SM.
Changes can happen (looking at you cheap fire-raptors) so I'll agree it's early too say that SM are hopeless/doomed but given GWsCA balancing attempts I'm not sure how much faith I'm willing to put into that. This is why I feel it's important for competitive players to bring up the issues they are facing to make sure crunchy balance issues are on GWs radar.
edit: yep I do have a very obvious bias
Half of dakka can't even agree that IG are OP. Something like 80% of them don't think singing spears are undercosted! It's almost useless to have discussion her about the actual state of things. I agree with you though that it is important to get the record right...or things will never change. I don't know what metrics GW uses to make their balancing changes but a consensus that space marines are "mid tier" certainly will prevent things from getting better.
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How many of the armies that are worse haven't gotten a Codex yet?
There's also the part where Codex: Space Marines was first out and thus have inflated the results in favour of Space Marines. Even with this inflation, it's a lower-midtier army at best.
Plus, Space Marines also had their primary winning-tools damaged.
Exactly this...... If someone's army doesn't have 2-3 top tier lists its straight to "my army is absolute trash and unplayable"
I think you missed the idea of this post. He's basically explaining why space marines are trash and unplayable.
What does the name next their name mean...like...the bottom 15 placings at this tourny 13- of the bottom 15 say upstate honor gaurd? Is this some kind of team event?
Under the players's name is Faction - Team Name(Gaming Group). ITC tracks team results throughout the year in addition to individual.
So either your personal sample size is more relevant to where SM stand as a competitive army or the fact that SM are 16-20 out of 29 based on aggregate data of over 7000 games points to the army struggling competitively (keep in mind that SM had first codex advantage and much of their ITC scores are inflated from the first couple months of 8th edition and other armies scores are depressed due to relying on the index which I doubt anyone is arguing is worse than subsequent codexes).
Wait...wait...wait. Let's step back for a moment here. In this, the post of someone defending the "SM are trash/not competitive" side of the argument, you cite that they are 16-20 out of 29. 16/29. Forgive me, but isn't 16 about half of 29? You're complaining about an "underpowered" army that's strictly in the middle of the pack, and this is coming directly from the confirmation-bias-friendly side making the case for them being underpowered. And yes, while some armies have gotten better over time, you also neglect to mention that some got severely worse (looking at you, Ynnari) or had their primary tournament-winning tools damaged (IG).
Is it any wonder people don't take this side seriously? Per your own argument, SM are not only a decent army - middle of the road, at worst - but they also get massively preferential treatment with model releases, priority for codices, unit selections...it comes across as amazingly entitled and Veruca Salt-y.
How many of the armies that are worse haven't gotten a Codex yet?
There's also the part where Codex: Space Marines was first out and thus have inflated the results in favour of Space Marines. Even with this inflation, it's a lower-midtier army at best.
Plus, Space Marines also had their primary winning-tools damaged.
Exactly this...... If someone's army doesn't have 2-3 top tier lists its straight to "my army is absolute trash and unplayable"
I think you missed the idea of this post. He's basically explaining why space marines are trash and unplayable.
Nope, i simply hit the quote button on the bottom post instead of the top. I agree with the top post of what I quoted. It happens constantly on dakka that a mid-tier army will be presented as "unplayable, terrible, useless, ect." unless it has 2 or more broken tournament builds at which point the entire army is broken instead of just 1-3 busted units. Dakka Simply places army's into the broken or terrible categories and forgets there is a large gap between the top and bottomm that the majority of armies fall into
Thrst77 wrote: I have been having trouble building a solid list and dont know what is good right now.
This doesn’t imply or explicitly state SM aren’t competitive.
Most issues stem from the basal marine not being worth 13 pts in 8th ed. It's the same problem marines usually have, to be honest. But in some editions, marines get tricks to get around this problem, such as free stuff in the form of Gladius. 8th ed doesn't seem to have these outs for marines. To me, the conclusion of uncompetitiveness is inescapable.
Basal marines got no points reduction, only primaris.
Primaris marines are crippled by lack of deep strike and transport options. Repulsors are terrible and need to be about 50-75 pts cheaper for primaris to function.
My nearly full primaris army went down 25 points in chapter approved. Guilliman and chronos went up in price. Intersessors went down. I can fit 1 more intercessor into my army...OP.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Primark G wrote: I’m sorry but I have to ask what does basal mean?
Primark G wrote: The thing about banana is he has a very obvious bias.
He's making good arguments.
Not really. I, and several others, have pointed out repeatedly his selective characterizations, that his own data contradicts him, his melodramatic fearmongering ("So it's not hard to see marines falling to 22-25 of 29") without evidence, etc.
The fact that he's not willing to address those points in lieu of repeating the same tired statements doesn't qualify as a "good argument." Might as well be at the presidential podium saying, "I have the best arguments, the best people."
Primark G wrote: The thing about banana is he has a very obvious bias.
He's making good arguments.
Not really. I, and several others, have pointed out repeatedly his selective characterizations, that his own data contradicts him, his melodramatic fearmongering ("So it's not hard to see marines falling to 22-25 of 29") without evidence, etc.
The fact that he's not willing to address those points in lieu of repeating the same tired statements doesn't qualify as a "good argument." Might as well be at the presidential podium saying, "I have the best arguments, the best people."
Alternatively, if you haven't actually rebutted the arguments repeating them makes complete sense.
One huge problem is the existence of Guilliman, he conceals the extent of the issues with the marine codex. He is an insane force multiplier. However, even with him, marines struggle to compete, which means that if you don't want to play Ultramarines, you're utterly fethed.
Crimson wrote: One huge problem is the existence of Guilliman, he conceals the extent of the issues with the marine codex. He is an insane force multiplier. However, even with him, marines struggle to compete, which means that if you don't want to play Ultramarines, you're utterly fethed.
Can you prove that playing without Guilliman makes SM unplayable?
Crimson wrote: One huge problem is the existence of Guilliman, he conceals the extent of the issues with the marine codex. He is an insane force multiplier. However, even with him, marines struggle to compete, which means that if you don't want to play Ultramarines, you're utterly fethed.
Can you prove that playing without Guilliman makes SM unplayable?
Can you make less strawmen? He didn't say it made SM "unplayable", he said that they "struggle to compete".
Crimson wrote: One huge problem is the existence of Guilliman, he conceals the extent of the issues with the marine codex. He is an insane force multiplier. However, even with him, marines struggle to compete, which means that if you don't want to play Ultramarines, you're utterly fethed.
Can you prove that playing without Guilliman makes SM unplayable?
No, but very few things can be conclusively "proven." That's not how observational science works. I can look at the units' mathematical efficacy w/o BobbyG and say that they are at a mathematical disadvantage.
Can you prove that playing without Guilliman makes SM unplayable?
They're not unplayable in casual setting, so personally I am not super concerned, but in a competitive setting they're in serious trouble.
But considering how long this thread is and you're not convinced that marines are pretty weak, I really don't think there is anything I can say to convince you.
Yes there is, there is a ton of evidence to support marines being bad without Guilliman, it's all of the ITC tournament data for 2018, even with the codex. You saying "there's no evidence" doesn't mean there is no evidence. My god.
Just because you say something doesn't make it true.
Marmatag wrote: Yes there is, there is a ton of evidence to support marines being bad without Guilliman, it's all of the ITC tournament data for 2018, even with the codex. You saying "there's no evidence" doesn't mean there is no evidence. My god.
Just because you say something doesn't make it true.
There is a mountain of evidence.
Primark G is playing Ultramarines, so he doesn't care if other chapters suck.
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?
Primark G wrote: The thing about banana is he has a very obvious bias.
He's making good arguments.
Not really. I, and several others, have pointed out repeatedly his selective characterizations, that his own data contradicts him, his melodramatic fearmongering ("So it's not hard to see marines falling to 22-25 of 29" without evidence, etc.
The fact that he's not willing to address those points in lieu of repeating the same tired statements doesn't qualify as a "good argument." Might as well be at the presidential podium saying, "I have the best arguments, the best people."
First of all, HOW DARE YOU ASSUME MY GENDER. I'M POLY AMORPHOUS AND PREFER THE PRONOUN SPONGE!!!!
Now that is out of the way I see a lot of baseless claims without data. I thought you were against that?
If memory serves I've yet to see one shred of hard data, that has not been thoroughly debunked, to back-up anything you claim.
Tournament results - nope (this one time, before anyone else had a codex, marines one a tourney.. summarily shown to be lazy analysis)
Math-hammer - nope
Personal lists - nope
ITC results - nope
Unit comparisons - nope
Anything else?
(BTW all data points I have provided)
Genuinely curious, where does my data contradict itself? The data may be open to contradictory interpretations and I easily could have done that but if you or I have data that contradicts what I have provided or even conclusions from that data that I overlooked or ignored that would be helpful to the conversation. (At least more helpful than nuh-uh, you're wrong)
The other two criticisms are subjective (the third is mostly true, I am a bit melodramatic and hyperbolic) but it seems pretty settled that codex armies are > their index version, right?
As those index armies get codexes they should get better right?
If they get better and marines stay the same then it is not out of the realm of possibility that those armies get better than SM right?
Where in this inference chain am I out of line?
It's not a sure thing. Necrons/Tau could get a GK codex. Orks codex could reduce boy squads to units of 10. Anything is possible. Until next years CA drops I doubt we will have a solid answer and even then that could shake everything up. But I feel I've provided enough data so people can see what I'm basing my assumptions/predictions on and am more than willing to debate any of that on the merits.
I'm eagerly await LVO to see what marine lists are running but the most recent highly placing list was G-man, some psychers and 4 fire-raptors (which I suggested and I expect will be a close approximation of the most competitive marine list, maybe with only 3 FRs but we'll see). Maybe that's the answer to this thread, FIRE RAPTORS!!!!
I have the distinct impression at this point I'm just being trolled by people with nothing constructive to add so I'll just let the data and conversely lack of data speak for itself. Hopefully I'm proven wrong and 8th edition flourishes with many competitive builds and armies but it looks, to me, like we are rushing headlong into the issues of 7th with 3-4 competitive armies/builds and the once in a blue moon outlier.
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?
And they are great against Guardsmen. The comparison is wrong. He's comparing shots per points and not shots per wounds. Guardsmen have a higher wounds to points ratio. In that vacuum, every gun in the game is worse against Guardsmen than SM.
This is why primaris marines are proper elite infantry. At least they're harder to kill with small arms than equivalent points worth of guardsmen. They're just hampered by lack of options and insanely expensive transports.
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?
And they are great against Guardsmen. The comparison is wrong. He's comparing shots per points and not shots per wounds. Guardsmen have a higher wounds to points ratio. In that vacuum, every gun in the game is worse against Guardsmen than SM.
I don't know about you, but I pay POINTS for my units. That's my entire point. You just made my case for me. My comparison is NOT wrong, because everything ultimately comes down to points. In fact, doing it any other way is wrong.
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?
And they are great against Guardsmen. The comparison is wrong. He's comparing shots per points and not shots per wounds. Guardsmen have a higher wounds to points ratio. In that vacuum, every gun in the game is worse against Guardsmen than SM.
I don't know about you, but I pay POINTS for my units. That's my entire point. You just made my case for me. My comparison is NOT wrong, because everything ultimately comes down to points. In fact, doing it any other way is wrong.
Ok... what is the point you're trying to make? I read your statement as apples to armadillos. A bolter is better at killing marines than guardsmen if you base it on how many points it could potentially kill. 2 bolter shots can kill 8 points of guardsmen, 26 points of Tacticals, or 45 points of Termies. So what?
I've got to say as someone on the fence on the issue, that bananathug, and the data-heavy podcast he linked to (which is amazing, really impressive amount of work went into it), are convincing me much more than anything I've hear from the other side. Marines are at a low-middling rank from the first 7 months of 8th, and bearing in mind that they jumped the codex gun, it seems they will settle lower down the ranks without GW-intervention. That's not to say that we won't see listbuilding change and adapt to conditions. Marines do have a boatload of options, so it's possible I suppose.
My local tourny scene is very fluffly, with lots of well painted armies and a generally great vibe, so I'm mercifully spared from bleeding-edge optimisation. Ignorance is bliss.
I don’t run a pure PSM army - I view them as any other units in the codex. Intercessors have always worked well for me - small squads that fill the requirement for compulsory troops; I do run scouts too. Some of the characters are okay if you don’t need them highly mobile. In general having two wounds and two attacks per model is good for MSU units.
Martel732 wrote: 18 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill a marine.
19.5 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill the same points of guardsmen.
Pretty sure you have to get down to S2 for the marine to get an advantage.
Include the effects of morale.
One thing in particular to consider is that "points removed" by a similar amount of shooting hurts guardsmen much more, as it's 3ish guardsmen to one marine. It takes two marine kills to begin threatening marines with morale, while their points equates to 6 guardsmen, making loosing additional models to morale highly likely.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
bananathug wrote: SM are tied at 16th with 4 other armies with an average of 60 ITC points earned by SM players in over 7,187 recorded games of 40k in 8th edition.
The conclusions you come to rely on the assumption that player skill by faction is equal, which in my experience is often not the case. A lot of nubs play marines. A lot of not great players go to tourneys for the lulz as well. It could also be the case that marines are easy to pick up, but difficult to master, which would also effect resulting numbers. There's room for skew in the data.
Also, ITC rules are quite particular, and may benefit some armies and playstyles more than others. The tables played on often strike me as sparse. This leaves more room for skew in the data. Are we attempting to balance the game based only on ITC and tables with simple terrain?
It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.
And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.
This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.
Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?
Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?
And they are great against Guardsmen. The comparison is wrong. He's comparing shots per points and not shots per wounds. Guardsmen have a higher wounds to points ratio. In that vacuum, every gun in the game is worse against Guardsmen than SM.
I don't know about you, but I pay POINTS for my units. That's my entire point. You just made my case for me. My comparison is NOT wrong, because everything ultimately comes down to points. In fact, doing it any other way is wrong.
Ok... what is the point you're trying to make? I read your statement as apples to armadillos. A bolter is better at killing marines than guardsmen if you base it on how many points it could potentially kill. 2 bolter shots can kill 8 points of guardsmen, 26 points of Tacticals, or 45 points of Termies. So what?
These are the averages being done. Math isn't THAT hard sometimes.
Martel732 wrote: 18 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill a marine.
19.5 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill the same points of guardsmen.
Pretty sure you have to get down to S2 for the marine to get an advantage.
Include the effects of morale.
One thing in particular to consider is that "points removed" by a similar amount of shooting hurts guardsmen much more, as it's 3ish guardsmen to one marine. It takes two marine kills to begin threatening marines with morale, while their points equates to 6 guardsmen, making loosing additional models to morale highly likely.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
bananathug wrote: SM are tied at 16th with 4 other armies with an average of 60 ITC points earned by SM players in over 7,187 recorded games of 40k in 8th edition.
The conclusions you come to rely on the assumption that player skill by faction is equal, which in my experience is often not the case. A lot of nubs play marines. A lot of not great players go to tourneys for the lulz as well. It could also be the case that marines are easy to pick up, but difficult to master, which would also effect resulting numbers. There's room for skew in the data.
Also, ITC rules are quite particular, and may benefit some armies and playstyles more than others. The tables played on often strike me as sparse. This leaves more room for skew in the data. Are we attempting to balance the game based only on ITC and tables with simple terrain?
1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.
Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.
Martel732 wrote: How man entrants were there for each faction. Because if half the entrants were SM, that's pretty miserable.
"The tables played on often strike me as sparse"
I've seen way more sparse tables in this game than heavy ones. Also, piling on more terrain just helps the IG anyway.
" but difficult to master"
Or impossible and those marine entries are from sheer brute force of entrants.
I stopped counting after 158 entrants, but out of those 17 were SM. About a third were UM, some Ravens, a Salamander and a couple of BT, the other ones were mixed SM.
Spoletta wrote: You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.
Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.
LOL funny you are comparing them to a unit with a 6+ save that has the same cost as them and equal toughness. I can't believe the unit with a weaker save dies more. It's mind boggling.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
Spoletta wrote: You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.
Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.
LOL funny you are comparing them to a unit with a 6+ save that has the same cost as them and equal toughness. I can't believe the unit with a weaker save dies more. It's mind boggling.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.
Did you really just state that you can't include results in your data if the factions those results involve aren't 'competitive enough' for your view of the game/meta?
I think I just found my answer to why this forum is so dull to read from a non-competitive viewpoint
Where are you getting these numbers? It doesn't seem like a very competitive meta but i'm curious to read lists and see more information. Specifically, how did Necrons/DE do anything at all.
Martel732 wrote: Rather than broad proclamations, maybe we should look at the compositions of those lists.
I agree, but I would also like to see where these numbers are coming from in the first place. He's provided no evidence whatsoever. A site like BloodofKittens i would trust more than this. Is he getting it from BOK? I haven't checked recently. I guess that's my point. Who is this random guy with tournament results, and why should i believe them?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here's the BOK list for ITC up to 12/28:
20 Astra Militarum
17 Chaos Space Marines
16 Ultramarines
16 Daemons
16 Ynnari
7 Orks
4 Space Marines
4 T’au Empire
4 Grey Knights
3 Officio Assassinorum
3 Blood Angels
3 Sisters of Battle
3 Death Guard
2 Genestealer Cults
2 Imperial Knights
2 Renegade Knights
2 Adeptus Mechanicus
2 Tyranids
1 Space Wolves
1 Adeptus Custodes
1 Dark Angels
Also someone posted earlier about the golden sprue GT.
No army list posted but I do see 2 ultra marine armies in the pictures.
1 has an Astraeus and 2 replusors + tiggy / GMan probably 3 units of intercessors inside them.
The other one seems to have 3 preds and a bunch of infantry and clagar + lieutenant .
I am going to assume the Astraeus army is the one that placed. It's the standard space marine competitive model.
Guilliman Tiggy + superheavy. I think it could do even better if you traded the repulsors for fire raptors and a storm talon for an air wing. That is a pretty powerful army.
I simply checked all the results reported for 40K tournaments from January 1 to the present date. Unfortunately, no lists are given there, only final results.
I prefer it to BoK because as i stated BoK is too slow in providing results, the ones from December are already talking about a different meta, and the fact that BoK is only ITC which while a common house rules it is still an house rule and the majority of tournaments don't follow that.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11 CSM 9 SM 8 Nids 8 Astra Militarum 6 Ynnari 6 Dark Angel 4 Imperium 4 Death Guard 4 Chaos 3 Daemons 3 Mechanicus 3 Tau 3 Dark Eldar 2 Sororitas 2 Necrons 1 Orks 1 GS Cult 1 Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring 2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring 3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence >shows tournament results >you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.
This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.
Marmatag wrote: New FW releases will definitely complicate the picture. They throw balance out the window. Which is why GW nerfed the alphabet soup monster so hard.
I thought the Astraeus sucked when it first came out - but that's just because it's points compared to the flachion. Now the Falchion costs over 1000 points which makes the Astraeus a little bit more attractive. I still don't think it's great. First time I've ever seen one place in a tourney.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.
This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.
So be it with the circular logic. It doesn't make me any less right. The data is misleading AF. It also has no supporting documentation.
I'm curious about tourneys that use ITC vs those that don't. All my local tournaments use ITC and from what I can tell most Majors use them (LVO will). I really wish the info provided was more granular (ITC or not, number of entrants, points...)
If it is as simple as Marines are punished by ITC then that is awesome to figure out what the issue is and maybe we can get with the ITC guys and try to figure something out based on this data (your rules suck for SM players). Anecdotally the ITC champions missions really punish marine armies and reward eldar.
I really want to poke at the data a bit but then I'd probably come off as pedantic but I will say that BCP data is prone to distortion due to all of the small tournies\leagues included and probably needs a larger sample size to really tease out an solid data but this is definitely an interesting data point from which to launch as much conjecture as possible. For example my local does it's tournies on BCP and we have as few as 12 people attending bi-monthly and based on what people around here say about their local meta I'm not sure a small sample size of such local meta dependent data "proves" anything but it sure does provide food for thought.
It does seem that the marine meta is RG+tiggy+super heavy/fire raptor and pray your enemy brought anti-horde weaponry and that you don't go against dark reaper spam (at least thats better than GK get). I'm really curious about the non-ultra lists especially the ones that aren't raven guard but I still want to chalk that up to local meta idiosyncrasies.
Thanks again for taking the time to sort through all that data.
Addendum on Spoletta's data: The problem with a list like this is what is defined as a "Space Marine list". I've been scanning BloodOfKittens' compilation of ITC 2017 top-3 army lists (events up through Christmas only), and they're listing things as "Space Marines" that are actually imperial soup lists running more Guardsmen than Space Marines. (And if your metric is "your primary detachment must be Space Marines only" then any list with Guilliman in an auxiliary detachment as a Warlord is an "Ultramarines list", even if it's otherwise entirely a Guard army.)
(For the curious they list 25 "Space Marine" (including DA, BA, SW) armies, 22 of those contain fewer than ten Scouts and no other Space Marine units other than Dreadnaughts, flyers, and characters, 2 of those contain thirty Devastators and no other non-vehicle/non-character Marine units, and one (count them, one) includes any Tactical Marines.)
Which is why they should change the army definition to "most specific keyword that encompasses all units."
Or, go back to mono-faction detachments, and bring back the concept of an "allied detachment" that can be no more than 25%.
If you want to be considered the best <Insert Marine Faction> here, you should have to actually know how to play that faction, not take a tiny detachment with your warlord, and the rest guard.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
1.a. That might be the silliest assertion you have ever made. ATSKNF is "useless" while Commissars "negate morale"? Do you understand how they work? Commissars after the FAQ are literally a crappy ATSKNF.
1.b. We can do the same scenario with a Commissar anyways. By Martels math, 2 marines die for every 6 guardsmen. At 2 marines, the marines still automatically pass morale because their sergeant has Ld. 8. At 6 Guardsman dead, Guardsmen need to roll a 1 to pass, leaving them at a 83% chance of failing. If they fail, even if they roll a 2, the Commissar immediately shoots one, and they still must re-roll, still requiring a 1 not to lose additional models, a 2 gets the same result (minus the additional model that the Commissar shot), and anything other than that results in even more casualties being taken. Once guardsmen take a certain number of casualties, the Commmissar averages more harm than good, and you don't have a choice about it. If we're talking points as the ultimate "value" of the exchange, Guardsmen average a higher loss because of the effects of morale.
If we were serious about helping marine players instead of just whining, we'd be discussing ideas on how to press those advantages. Instead of killing entire squads, spread the love around. Killing 21 guys in three different squads can quickly net you 30 total casualties from the morale effects.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
This doesn't have any teeth to it. All I did was point out clear areas where the statistics available may not tell the whole story. You can try to insult me for it, but it doesn't defend against any of my assertions.
I do think a lot of new players play marines. I do think that many people that go to tournaments aren't "the best" players (there's no qualifying round or anything), and that yes, because marines are generalists they can be easy to start with but more tricky to squeeze their advantages out of, unlike other armies with very extreme specialists with push-button roles.
Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
Martel732 wrote: Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
I tend to think of guardsmen as "casual targets". Aka, my squads main guns are actually firing off at more important targets, but there's a constant spattering of bolterfire/assaults hitting away at the little guys. Because I use a lot of marines the "casual fire" adds up to meaningful results. Hooray for split-fire in 8th edition.
Edit: I also think that CPs spent on normal guardsmen is often just a net win for me.
I think they're doing a pretty good job of driving mono faction detachments overall, but in terms of army classification, it should definitely either be the keyword that allows your models to all be in one army or at the very least the keyword of the largest detachment.
Martel732 wrote: Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
I tend to think of guardsmen as "casual targets". Aka, my squads main guns are actually firing off at more important targets, but there's a constant spattering of bolterfire/assaults hitting away at the little guys. Because I use a lot of marines the "casual fire" adds up to meaningful results. Hooray for split-fire in 8th edition.
Edit: I also think that CPs spent on normal guardsmen is often just a net win for me.
This is ultimately the "shoot past the screens" solution. Which still seems like it's trying to outshoot the guard, which seems crazy. But less crazy than trying to chop through the screens in melee.
Martel732 wrote: Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
I tend to think of guardsmen as "casual targets". Aka, my squads main guns are actually firing off at more important targets, but there's a constant spattering of bolterfire/assaults hitting away at the little guys. Because I use a lot of marines the "casual fire" adds up to meaningful results. Hooray for split-fire in 8th edition.
Edit: I also think that CPs spent on normal guardsmen is often just a net win for me.
This is ultimately the "shoot past the screens" solution. Which still seems like it's trying to outshoot the guard, which seems crazy. But less crazy than trying to chop through the screens in melee.
Imo it's the way to go. At least it's worked pretty well for me so far. I'm confident in the ability for lots of marines to defeat lots of guardsmen in a sustained fight, but doing it under a constant artillery/supporting barrage is a no go.
Martel732 wrote: Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
I tend to think of guardsmen as "casual targets". Aka, my squads main guns are actually firing off at more important targets, but there's a constant spattering of bolterfire/assaults hitting away at the little guys. Because I use a lot of marines the "casual fire" adds up to meaningful results. Hooray for split-fire in 8th edition.
Edit: I also think that CPs spent on normal guardsmen is often just a net win for me.
The casual target/annoyance fire thing is really underestimated in 8E. Lots of armies end up with lots of annoyance weaponry which, to an SM opponent, may never amount to more than that, but can be used to great effect against IG. If you've rolled up with a trio of Rhinos that have already done their transport thing, those 3 stormbolters may kill 1 marine and typically just feel useless, but will average 4-5 kills between shooting and morale on guardsmen, which can open a gap in a line for an assault (thats how I lost my Punisher in my last game) or kill a depleted/small squad which may otherwise still have some table value.
Martel732 wrote: So how do you stop them from knocking out YOUR range with THEIR range. Which is better. And they have more of it.
I think you should consider creating a separate thread for IG versus SM. The focus here is on how to field competitive SM armies and what makes them competitive.
Martel732 wrote: So how do you stop them from knocking out YOUR range with THEIR range. Which is better. And they have more of it.
Drop Pods, occasionally a Rhino. It's expensive but they guarantee that you can't shoot them. It's been Tacs and Devs but I'm pushing towards a third Devastator squad to give me the option of all three in pods with Chapter Master and Lieutenant. I may experiment with Salamanders tactics as well, but it's hard for me to leave UM. Mostly I drop Plasma and Grav, but sometimes the range is difficult. I would like the option of dropping three full Lascannon Devastator Squads because it's basically impossible to screen against, but I might be giving up too much forward deploying muscle. Grav Cannons do the most damage, Lascannons have better range and do almost as much damage, and also take more advantage of the Lieutennant (vs. higher toughness, 1/2 of your wound fails get re-rolls, and 2/3s of those wound). I feel that with Salamanders, Lascannons will be nearly guaranteed full re-rolls to wound, as Lieutennant re-roll 1's and Salamanders can pick up the slack by re-rolling any 2s. I hate to give up +1 Ld and Fallback-shoot though, I take a lot of casualties and am in assaults a lot.
I'd like to squeeze some Thunder Hammers into my army, as I've come to really respect the auto 3 wounds. But I'm not sure how I'll get it all in there.
Martel732 wrote: Spreading the love around is why my reivers have the carbines. But at the end of the day, even killing/shocking 40 guardsmen is only 160 pts. And its a lot of effort to do so. And guard have plenty of CP and other shenanigans to keep a critical squad.
I tend to think of guardsmen as "casual targets". Aka, my squads main guns are actually firing off at more important targets, but there's a constant spattering of bolterfire/assaults hitting away at the little guys. Because I use a lot of marines the "casual fire" adds up to meaningful results. Hooray for split-fire in 8th edition.
Edit: I also think that CPs spent on normal guardsmen is often just a net win for me.
The casual target/annoyance fire thing is really underestimated in 8E. Lots of armies end up with lots of annoyance weaponry which, to an SM opponent, may never amount to more than that, but can be used to great effect against IG. If you've rolled up with a trio of Rhinos that have already done their transport thing, those 3 stormbolters may kill 1 marine and typically just feel useless, but will average 4-5 kills between shooting and morale on guardsmen, which can open a gap in a line for an assault (thats how I lost my Punisher in my last game) or kill a depleted/small squad which may otherwise still have some table value.
Totally, and it feels great to have your basic guys behave the way you expect them to behave, which is cover the heavy guy while he/she is targeting the vehicle/monster. It really helps mixed weapon squads pull their weight, and also makes the "front" the Tactical Squads proper place, Imo.
Martel732 wrote: Being able to take on the IG is the definition of competitiveness.
True.
I’ve been using a Stormhawk to reach hard to reach units and so far it’s done good. It might not last after the following turn but that takes heat off other units.
Martel732 wrote: Being able to take on the IG is the definition of competitiveness.
That's up for debate, i personally consider the Mortagnus list to be the meter.
It remains to be seen but mortagnus just took a huge nerf IMO. The changling does not give -1 to hit anymore. This makes alpha striking magnus a lot easier.
Marmatag wrote: New FW releases will definitely complicate the picture. They throw balance out the window. Which is why GW nerfed the alphabet soup monster so hard.
I thought the Astraeus sucked when it first came out - but that's just because it's points compared to the flachion. Now the Falchion costs over 1000 points which makes the Astraeus a little bit more attractive. I still don't think it's great. First time I've ever seen one place in a tourney.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.
This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.
Xenomancers wrote: So be it with the circular logic. It doesn't make me any less right. The data is misleading AF. It also has no supporting documentation.
No, that's literally exactly what it means - that you're wrong. It's a flaw in the logic, meaning that logic is void.
Marmatag wrote: New FW releases will definitely complicate the picture. They throw balance out the window. Which is why GW nerfed the alphabet soup monster so hard.
I thought the Astraeus sucked when it first came out - but that's just because it's points compared to the flachion. Now the Falchion costs over 1000 points which makes the Astraeus a little bit more attractive. I still don't think it's great. First time I've ever seen one place in a tourney.
Spoletta wrote: Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:
Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1
Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:
1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.
Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.
Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.
>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions
It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.
This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.
So be it with the circular logic. It doesn't make me any less right. The data is misleading AF. It also has no supporting documentation.
No, that's literally exactly what it means - that you're wrong. It's a flaw in the logic, meaning that logic is void.
I don't know if you know this - but it is possible to arrive at a conclusion for the wrong reason. Faulty logic does not make you wrong.
My logic is actually pretty good though. Armies that have proven to be terrible are placing in tournments...WTF tournaments are these?
The current "anything can hurt anything," proliferation multi-damage weapons, AP changes all point at that:
Competitive = Lots of wounds and biggest guns
On a WAAC list,
AM can bring a LOT of wounds and has THE biggest guns
Tyranid can bring a lot of wounds and lot of mortal wounds
Orks can bring a little less "a lot" of wounds and half decent guns
SM can bring a few wounds with decent guns
Aeldari can bring a few wounds and slightly more decent guns
One army does the game better than the rest, and its AM.
Stormraven spam is just that - they're THE, hands down, the most efficient unit in the codex.
Well, an Ultramarines list with 3 Assassins and Greyfax (the rest of it was UM infantry, mostly Primaris, and one Drop Pod), no Guilliman and no Tigurius won the Australian Masters in December, so that's a thing.
Xenomancers wrote: I'm not admitting to faulty logic - only that faulty logic wouldn't make me wrong.
Is it logical to you that Ultra marines should be placing in more tournaments than AM? Think carefully.
It is absolutely logical. More people own marines than any other army. Adding RG to an existing marine army is easier/cheaper than buying a new army. IT is a very select few people that meta chase to the point of buying whole new armies. Thus when we are including all tournaments being played more marines = more marines placing. You need to consider that not all AM players are great players regardless of their armies.
Anecdotal evidence to support this conclusion. At my last tournament (only 12 players mind you) the top 2 tables were all some marine variant (2 DA, 1 Imperial Fist, 1 DA + White scars). In the placings the top 4 were all marine players, this is despite 2 AM players being at the event (both went 2-1). I won and tabled one of those AM players with my DA + White scars on turn 3. Now this was in a 1500 point event, with no Lords of War and no FW, so hardly the best of the best competitive setting, but in theory it is a setting that should favor AM over marines because they don't lose much in that setting vs losing RG.
I think the important thing to take from any placing data is that faction only really matters when player skill is close, I'll freely admit AM is probably one of the top 3 factions right now (CSM, Eldar being the other 2). But for most people Marines are fine for competition, because competition doesn't mean winning a GT or a Major, they aren't going to do that with any faction.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
1.a. That might be the silliest assertion you have ever made. ATSKNF is "useless" while Commissars "negate morale"? Do you understand how they work? Commissars after the FAQ are literally a crappy ATSKNF.
1.b. We can do the same scenario with a Commissar anyways. By Martels math, 2 marines die for every 6 guardsmen. At 2 marines, the marines still automatically pass morale because their sergeant has Ld. 8. At 6 Guardsman dead, Guardsmen need to roll a 1 to pass, leaving them at a 83% chance of failing. If they fail, even if they roll a 2, the Commissar immediately shoots one, and they still must re-roll, still requiring a 1 not to lose additional models, a 2 gets the same result (minus the additional model that the Commissar shot), and anything other than that results in even more casualties being taken. Once guardsmen take a certain number of casualties, the Commmissar averages more harm than good, and you don't have a choice about it. If we're talking points as the ultimate "value" of the exchange, Guardsmen average a higher loss because of the effects of morale.
If we were serious about helping marine players instead of just whining, we'd be discussing ideas on how to press those advantages. Instead of killing entire squads, spread the love around. Killing 21 guys in three different squads can quickly net you 30 total casualties from the morale effects.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
This doesn't have any teeth to it. All I did was point out clear areas where the statistics available may not tell the whole story. You can try to insult me for it, but it doesn't defend against any of my assertions.
I do think a lot of new players play marines. I do think that many people that go to tournaments aren't "the best" players (there's no qualifying round or anything), and that yes, because marines are generalists they can be easy to start with but more tricky to squeeze their advantages out of, unlike other armies with very extreme specialists with push-button roles.
1. It isn't silly. Nobody is taking Marine squads above minimum for the most part or up to 7-8, because MSU is the way to do things along with avoiding morale as an issue. Remember that 6 Marines is 78 points, and that's 20 infantry models. Morale isn't a factor for one of those squads I can tell you that much.
More the point is that every person builds to avoid morale, but certain armies are just going to ignore it. When you Mathhammer Gaunts, you don't calculate battle shock. They're cheap enough to throw a cheap Synapse creature into the mix.
Or you can buy a Platoon commander and get that relic pistol that avoids morale. Either or.
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
You're not dominating tournaments for a reason. People make time for their hobbies no matter what. You don't have an excuse and you COULD prove us wrong. You won't though, so stop asserting Marine players are at fault.
Xenomancers wrote: I'm not admitting to faulty logic - only that faulty logic wouldn't make me wrong.
Is it logical to you that Ultra marines should be placing in more tournaments than AM? Think carefully.
You're arguing that because a broken clock can be right twice per day, it's not a broken clock. You admit to using faulty logic to back your position up, but then ask people "is it logical?"
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
This seems like it's more moving the goalposts. "Our codex isn't strong, but we have a few strong units" is a hugely different thing than saying the army can't be competitive at a tournament - which the data shows they, at worst, are middle of the road. Hell, you could make that same argument for Tau being weak last edition if you took out Riptides, but I think you'd be laughed out of here if you tried. Then you move the goalposts more and say those marine units are "not even Marine-ish." So all of your special marines should be OP, not just a few units...? You say that the primarch of a legion and razorbacks...are not "Marine-ish." I mean, can we stop the grasping at straws here?
Martel732 wrote: Being able to take on the IG is the definition of competitiveness.
That's up for debate, i personally consider the Mortagnus list to be the meter.
Not since dark reaper spam is a thing.
30 dark reapers are pretty much guaranteed to ace Magnus off the table if they go first. Actually devoting your reapers to Magnus is overkill. The following turn they kill Mortarian.
I can't fathom how people haven't seen reaper spam. It's so broken, especially with forewarned, guide, move-shoot-move, no penalty to hit, 3 damage, etc. And this is all coming from massive range with 2+ save in cover. Yuck, how did this make it in the game.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
1.a. That might be the silliest assertion you have ever made. ATSKNF is "useless" while Commissars "negate morale"? Do you understand how they work? Commissars after the FAQ are literally a crappy ATSKNF.
1.b. We can do the same scenario with a Commissar anyways. By Martels math, 2 marines die for every 6 guardsmen. At 2 marines, the marines still automatically pass morale because their sergeant has Ld. 8. At 6 Guardsman dead, Guardsmen need to roll a 1 to pass, leaving them at a 83% chance of failing. If they fail, even if they roll a 2, the Commissar immediately shoots one, and they still must re-roll, still requiring a 1 not to lose additional models, a 2 gets the same result (minus the additional model that the Commissar shot), and anything other than that results in even more casualties being taken. Once guardsmen take a certain number of casualties, the Commmissar averages more harm than good, and you don't have a choice about it. If we're talking points as the ultimate "value" of the exchange, Guardsmen average a higher loss because of the effects of morale.
If we were serious about helping marine players instead of just whining, we'd be discussing ideas on how to press those advantages. Instead of killing entire squads, spread the love around. Killing 21 guys in three different squads can quickly net you 30 total casualties from the morale effects.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
This doesn't have any teeth to it. All I did was point out clear areas where the statistics available may not tell the whole story. You can try to insult me for it, but it doesn't defend against any of my assertions.
I do think a lot of new players play marines. I do think that many people that go to tournaments aren't "the best" players (there's no qualifying round or anything), and that yes, because marines are generalists they can be easy to start with but more tricky to squeeze their advantages out of, unlike other armies with very extreme specialists with push-button roles.
1. It isn't silly. Nobody is taking Marine squads above minimum for the most part or up to 7-8, because MSU is the way to do things along with avoiding morale as an issue. Remember that 6 Marines is 78 points, and that's 20 infantry models. Morale isn't a factor for one of those squads I can tell you that much.
More the point is that every person builds to avoid morale, but certain armies are just going to ignore it. When you Mathhammer Gaunts, you don't calculate battle shock. They're cheap enough to throw a cheap Synapse creature into the mix.
Or you can buy a Platoon commander and get that relic pistol that avoids morale. Either or.
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
You're not dominating tournaments for a reason. People make time for their hobbies no matter what. You don't have an excuse and you COULD prove us wrong. You won't though, so stop asserting Marine players are at fault.
>we aren’t competitive if you ignore our most competitive build
Its the equivalent of a guard player saying “we aren’t competitive if you don’t take our cheep screening units and LOS ignoring artilary”
This entire thread can be summarized as “if you ignore build x and all tournament results that disprove SM are bottom tier then SM are the worst”
You clearly aren’t open for a real discussion which makes anyone’s attempt at a reply useless
I've played against a lot of marine lists and i can't point to a single unit that i fear like reapers or guardsmen. Bobby g is the most overrated model in the game, imo.
No it's not at all. Guilliman can only be used by ultramarines.
Blood angels, dark angels, space wolves, grey knights, salamanders, white scars, raven guard, black templar, imperial fists all cannot benefit from Guilliman.
All IG can use the op units. Not all marines can use the one OP model.
Martel732 wrote: Being able to take on the IG is the definition of competitiveness.
That's up for debate, i personally consider the Mortagnus list to be the meter.
Not since dark reaper spam is a thing.
30 dark reapers are pretty much guaranteed to ace Magnus off the table if they go first. Actually devoting your reapers to Magnus is overkill. The following turn they kill Mortarian.
I can't fathom how people haven't seen reaper spam. It's so broken, especially with forewarned, guide, move-shoot-move, no penalty to hit, 3 damage, etc. And this is all coming from massive range with 2+ save in cover. Yuck, how did this make it in the game.
yeah IDK why people dont know either.... Dark Reaper spam is real and insanely strong. It will be nerf soon for sure.
Xenomancers wrote: I'm not admitting to faulty logic - only that faulty logic wouldn't make me wrong.
Is it logical to you that Ultra marines should be placing in more tournaments than AM? Think carefully.
You're arguing that because a broken clock can be right twice per day, it's not a broken clock. You admit to using faulty logic to back your position up, but then ask people "is it logical?"
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
This seems like it's more moving the goalposts. "Our codex isn't strong, but we have a few strong units" is a hugely different thing than saying the army can't be competitive at a tournament - which the data shows they, at worst, are middle of the road. Hell, you could make that same argument for Tau being weak last edition if you took out Riptides, but I think you'd be laughed out of here if you tried. Then you move the goalposts more and say those marine units are "not even Marine-ish." So all of your special marines should be OP, not just a few units...? You say that the primarch of a legion and razorbacks...are not "Marine-ish." I mean, can we stop the grasping at straws here?
Then we can say 6th/7th edition Tyranids are a competitive codex under your logic.
Also you kinda didn't read the rest did ya? I said the most competitive build isn't Marine-ish and it's still proving to go down hill as more Codices get released. To be THAT middle of the road when we still have half the Codices to be released isn't something to defend.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
1.a. That might be the silliest assertion you have ever made. ATSKNF is "useless" while Commissars "negate morale"? Do you understand how they work? Commissars after the FAQ are literally a crappy ATSKNF.
1.b. We can do the same scenario with a Commissar anyways. By Martels math, 2 marines die for every 6 guardsmen. At 2 marines, the marines still automatically pass morale because their sergeant has Ld. 8. At 6 Guardsman dead, Guardsmen need to roll a 1 to pass, leaving them at a 83% chance of failing. If they fail, even if they roll a 2, the Commissar immediately shoots one, and they still must re-roll, still requiring a 1 not to lose additional models, a 2 gets the same result (minus the additional model that the Commissar shot), and anything other than that results in even more casualties being taken. Once guardsmen take a certain number of casualties, the Commmissar averages more harm than good, and you don't have a choice about it. If we're talking points as the ultimate "value" of the exchange, Guardsmen average a higher loss because of the effects of morale.
If we were serious about helping marine players instead of just whining, we'd be discussing ideas on how to press those advantages. Instead of killing entire squads, spread the love around. Killing 21 guys in three different squads can quickly net you 30 total casualties from the morale effects.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
This doesn't have any teeth to it. All I did was point out clear areas where the statistics available may not tell the whole story. You can try to insult me for it, but it doesn't defend against any of my assertions.
I do think a lot of new players play marines. I do think that many people that go to tournaments aren't "the best" players (there's no qualifying round or anything), and that yes, because marines are generalists they can be easy to start with but more tricky to squeeze their advantages out of, unlike other armies with very extreme specialists with push-button roles.
1. It isn't silly. Nobody is taking Marine squads above minimum for the most part or up to 7-8, because MSU is the way to do things along with avoiding morale as an issue. Remember that 6 Marines is 78 points, and that's 20 infantry models. Morale isn't a factor for one of those squads I can tell you that much.
More the point is that every person builds to avoid morale, but certain armies are just going to ignore it. When you Mathhammer Gaunts, you don't calculate battle shock. They're cheap enough to throw a cheap Synapse creature into the mix.
Or you can buy a Platoon commander and get that relic pistol that avoids morale. Either or.
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
You're not dominating tournaments for a reason. People make time for their hobbies no matter what. You don't have an excuse and you COULD prove us wrong. You won't though, so stop asserting Marine players are at fault.
>we aren’t competitive if you ignore our most competitive build
Its the equivalent of a guard player saying “we aren’t competitive if you don’t take our cheep screening units and LOS ignoring artilary”
This entire thread can be summarized as “if you ignore build x and all tournament results that disprove SM are bottom tier then SM are the worst”
You clearly aren’t open for a real discussion which makes anyone’s attempt at a reply useless
Did you also opt to not read anything after that statement? The strongest is not Marine-ish, and is slowly going down as more Codices are getting released.
Primark G wrote: You said he didn’t do anything for other Chapters.
He doesn't.
Is your argument that he does because you can pay ~400 points for the same bonus a ~75 point captain provides? So therefore Guilliman has value to say, White Scars? Do you want to be considered credible?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: 1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.
1.a. That might be the silliest assertion you have ever made. ATSKNF is "useless" while Commissars "negate morale"? Do you understand how they work? Commissars after the FAQ are literally a crappy ATSKNF.
1.b. We can do the same scenario with a Commissar anyways. By Martels math, 2 marines die for every 6 guardsmen. At 2 marines, the marines still automatically pass morale because their sergeant has Ld. 8. At 6 Guardsman dead, Guardsmen need to roll a 1 to pass, leaving them at a 83% chance of failing. If they fail, even if they roll a 2, the Commissar immediately shoots one, and they still must re-roll, still requiring a 1 not to lose additional models, a 2 gets the same result (minus the additional model that the Commissar shot), and anything other than that results in even more casualties being taken. Once guardsmen take a certain number of casualties, the Commmissar averages more harm than good, and you don't have a choice about it. If we're talking points as the ultimate "value" of the exchange, Guardsmen average a higher loss because of the effects of morale.
If we were serious about helping marine players instead of just whining, we'd be discussing ideas on how to press those advantages. Instead of killing entire squads, spread the love around. Killing 21 guys in three different squads can quickly net you 30 total casualties from the morale effects.
2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.
This doesn't have any teeth to it. All I did was point out clear areas where the statistics available may not tell the whole story. You can try to insult me for it, but it doesn't defend against any of my assertions.
I do think a lot of new players play marines. I do think that many people that go to tournaments aren't "the best" players (there's no qualifying round or anything), and that yes, because marines are generalists they can be easy to start with but more tricky to squeeze their advantages out of, unlike other armies with very extreme specialists with push-button roles.
1. It isn't silly. Nobody is taking Marine squads above minimum for the most part or up to 7-8, because MSU is the way to do things along with avoiding morale as an issue. Remember that 6 Marines is 78 points, and that's 20 infantry models. Morale isn't a factor for one of those squads I can tell you that much.
More the point is that every person builds to avoid morale, but certain armies are just going to ignore it. When you Mathhammer Gaunts, you don't calculate battle shock. They're cheap enough to throw a cheap Synapse creature into the mix.
Or you can buy a Platoon commander and get that relic pistol that avoids morale. Either or.
2. Once again, you're blaming the Marine players rather than the codex. Unless you're the Tactical Genius we've all been waiting for, we have data that PROVES it is a weak codex outside Roboute + Razorbacks and/or Stormravens. That's not even Marine-ish either, AND as more Codices get released they've slowly gone downhill. Yeah they're not as bad as Grey Knights and AdMech, but that's not part of the discussion.
You're not dominating tournaments for a reason. People make time for their hobbies no matter what. You don't have an excuse and you COULD prove us wrong. You won't though, so stop asserting Marine players are at fault.
1. "Nobody is taking Marine squads above minimum" says the guy who says he uses 8-man Sternguard squads. But moves the goal posts and says 7 or 8 (more than "barely above" in your original post) now. If you lose 6 of them you've got a 66% chance to lose another (50% to lose the squad) to morale without ATSKNF, because I assume you're killing the Sergeant before the Grav Cannons. And before you say that I'll spend the effort wiping out the squad, it could have happened in close combat, where I don't have further damage options available to me, or if I was playing Tyranids, who are not much concerned about grav.
The original example given was not Gaunts, but Guard, if you recall. And guard have more morale issues than they did at the start of this edition. Guard players don't simply wave morale issues away. If you wan't to do the math with Gaunts, do the math with Gaunts. 4 pt. Fleshborer Gaunts have a worse save and a worse gun than Guard.
2.a. There's nothing in there that refutes the assertions I put forth. If you come up with anything viable, I'd be interested to hear it.
2.b. Let's take the theoretical example and say I am a tactical genius, and I did go to a tournament, and I did win with my Tactical Squads. You know what some of you guys would say? "Statistical anomaly! Everyone knows Tactical Squads are crap! Obviously the meta in the tournament wasn't very competitive!"
More morale issues = no longer immune. Saying they have "more morale issues" is wholly disingenuous because they now have the same issue as everyone else.
I'm not denying that you can leadership whammy a few guardsmen/turn.
Squads of ten guardsmen start taking catastrophic battleshock when 7/10 are killed. This is irrefutable. 6/10 is less good, since a 5+ is needed to finish the squad.
So we kill 28 pts of models and get 12 more for free. That's still an upper limit of 40 pts removed, and the firepower to remove the initial 7 far exceeds 40 pts. A full tac squad rapid firing costs 130 pts and only removes six guardsmen. That's 130 pts to remove 24. Yes, marines can get fancier guns, but that's increasing the 130 pts.
Martel732 wrote: He's technically correct, but it's an irrelevant technicality.
This is a competitive thread.
Guilliman provides no value to a competitive white scars list. He provides no value to a competitive Blood Angels list.
Just because he allows you to reroll ones doesn't mean that boost has any value given the context.
What if you’re running two different chapters though - it can extend the buff range significantly.
So you could bring Guilliman, or you could just have 2 captains for less than half the cost, one in each detachment, while simultaneously filling 2 mandatory HQ slots. There is no argument for Guilliman. And, if you have two detachment, there are characters that can grant you full rerolls and other things. For instance, Dark Angels would be much better off with Azrael for the obvious reasons. Grey Knights would be better off with Draigo. Etc.
Then you lack imagination. I can see plenty of reason to mix chapters in a Bobby G list. Say I am taking some mobile element that would benefit from a different CT, and likely won't be near RG. Why would I make them Ultra marines? For example maybe I want some plasma inceptors to deepstrike in. Why keep them as UM? They would be better as Dark Angels to use the DA specific strat.
Or maybe I am taking Reivers to deepstrike assault. They would be better as Blood Angels.
I don't think you want to spend a ton on other chapters but for small detachments with a purpose it totally makes sense and is an advantage. If all you can think of with RG is full blob gunline it is no surprise to me that you find SM to be terrible.
No, I play all that other stuff because I'm BA and it basically is all overcosted. I'm assuming Bobby G shows up in tournaments because people are just making parking lots and brute forcing the problem. Because trying to move and finesse and make matchups fails with models as expensive as marines.
Sure, bring plasma inceptors, reivers, etc. Won't help vs the power lists because none of those units are efficient enough to matter.
I can think of lots of things, but its all bad because marines cost so many points, and opponents just ignore the schemes and go "LOL DIE ASTARTES" in their shooting phase. And it works, because marines are glass cannons in 8th.
I don't even respect other marine lists when playing marines. It's a slap fight of inefficiency. I can't hurt him, he can't hurt me.
Marmatag wrote: More morale issues = no longer immune. Saying they have "more morale issues" is wholly disingenuous because they now have the same issue as everyone else.
Well, no. As already noted some armies still can ignore morale, or mitigate it's effects. Marines with their higher Ld, lower minimum model count and ATSKNF have less morale issues. Imo Guard are on the poor end of the morale stick now because they start off at low Ld.,naturally lose more models at a time and Commissars can easily do more harm than good.
Either way if you're going to compare units you should be taking it into account (which is how this all got started).
Marmatag wrote: More morale issues = no longer immune. Saying they have "more morale issues" is wholly disingenuous because they now have the same issue as everyone else.
Well, no. As already noted some armies still can ignore morale, or mitigate it's effects. Marines with their higher Ld, lower minimum model count and ATSKNF have less morale issues. Imo Guard are on the poor end of the morale stick now because they start off at low Ld.,naturally lose more models at a time and Commissars can easily do more harm than good.
Either way if you're going to compare units you should be taking it into account (which is how this all got started).
But the models they lose don't cost anything and have already done their job after your opponent's movement phase. You don't care what happens after that. You are paying 40 pts, and only 40 pts, to let 1200 pts get to shoot again.
It seems like every competitive discussion ultimately boils down to two groups at odds: Those who understand and have observed the requirement of screening units, and those who have not.
If you haven't ever needed screening units, or seen uberalpha lists that will face you turn 1, you won't see the value in a 40 point unit that prevents that, because, as far as you're concerned, it doesn't exist.
Guardsmen are a 4 ppm unit that turns off my entire codex, basically without firing a shot. That's true power. The actual IG units doing the killing are functionally immortal unless I shoot them, and I'll lose that race, too.
Martel732 wrote: No, I play all that other stuff because I'm BA and it basically is all overcosted. I'm assuming Bobby G shows up in tournaments because people are just making parking lots and brute forcing the problem. Because trying to move and finesse and make matchups fails with models as expensive as marines.
Sure, bring plasma inceptors, reivers, etc. Won't help vs the power lists because none of those units are efficient enough to matter.
I can think of lots of things, but its all bad because marines cost so many points, and opponents just ignore the schemes and go "LOL DIE ASTARTES" in their shooting phase. And it works, because marines are glass cannons in 8th.
I don't even respect other marine lists when playing marines. It's a slap fight of inefficiency. I can't hurt him, he can't hurt me.
Again though you are pigeonholing yourself into one faction, the efficiency of certain units changes based on the chapter. I'm not saying it is any kind of auto-win or easy fight, but I do think a lot of people use Bobby G because it is an easy way to win games against less skilled opponents, but it often isn't winning against top lists. I agree marines are often glass cannons, but going straight gunline doesn't change that, it just means you lose to better gunline armies because you are playing their game.
Martel732 wrote: No, I play all that other stuff because I'm BA and it basically is all overcosted. I'm assuming Bobby G shows up in tournaments because people are just making parking lots and brute forcing the problem. Because trying to move and finesse and make matchups fails with models as expensive as marines.
Sure, bring plasma inceptors, reivers, etc. Won't help vs the power lists because none of those units are efficient enough to matter.
I can think of lots of things, but its all bad because marines cost so many points, and opponents just ignore the schemes and go "LOL DIE ASTARTES" in their shooting phase. And it works, because marines are glass cannons in 8th.
I don't even respect other marine lists when playing marines. It's a slap fight of inefficiency. I can't hurt him, he can't hurt me.
Again though you are pigeonholing yourself into one faction, the efficiency of certain units changes based on the chapter. I'm not saying it is any kind of auto-win or easy fight, but I do think a lot of people use Bobby G because it is an easy way to win games against less skilled opponents, but it often isn't winning against top lists. I agree marines are often glass cannons, but going straight gunline doesn't change that, it just means you lose to better gunline armies because you are playing their game.
As I said, I've beaten Bobby G about 50% of the time with frickin BA using captains and lieutenants as my characters most of the time. Once you nuke away most of his bubble, he has to hoof it around to other units, and the whole list suffers at maelstrom.
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without evidence, etc.
